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COLLECTED ESSAYS 

By T. H. HUXLEY 

VOLUME VII 



THOMAS H. HUXLEY'S WORKS. 



Collected Essays. 

Vol. i. Method and Results. 

" 2. Darwiniana. 

11 3. Science and Education. 

" 4. Science and Hebrew Tradition. 

" 5. Science and Christian Tradition. 

" 6. Hume. 

" 7. Man's Place in Nature. 

" 8. Ethical and Philosophical Essays. 

" 9. Essays in Science. 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.25 per vol. 

The Crayfish: 

An Introduction to the Study of Zoology. 
With 82 Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

Manual of the Anatomy of Vertebrated 

Animals. Illustrated. 121110. Cloth, $2.50. 

Manual of the Anatomy of Invertebrated 

Animals. Illustrated. 121110. Cloth, $2.50. 

Physiography : 

An Introduction to the Study of Nature. With 
Illustrations and Colored Plates. i2mo. Cloth, $2.50. 



New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



AND OTHER 

ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSAYS 



BY 

THOMAS H. HUXLEY 






NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1894 






Authorized Edition. 









of 



PREFACE 

I am very well aware that the old are prone to 
regard their early performances with much more 
interest than their contemporaries of a younger 
generation are likely to take in them ; moreover, 
I freely admit that my younger contemporaries 
might employ their time better than in perusing 
the three essays, written thirty-two years ago, 
which occupy the first place in this volume. This 
confession is the more needful, inasmuch as all the 
premisses of the argument set forth in " Man's 
Place in Nature" and most of the conclusions 
deduced from them, are now to be met with among 
other well-established and, indeed, elementary 
truths, in the text-books. 

Paradoxical as the statement may seem, how- 
ever, it is just because every well-informed student 
of biology ought to be tempted to throw these 
essays, and especially the second, "On the 
Relations of Man to the Lower Animals/' aside, as 
a fair mathematician might dispense with the 
reperusal of Cocker's arithmetic, that I think it 



VI PKEFACE 

worth while to reprint them ; and entertain 
the hope that the story of their origin and early 
fate may not be devoid of a certain antiquarian 
interest, even if it possess no other. 

In 1854, it became my duty to teach the 
principles of biological science with especial refer- 
ence to paleontology. The first result of address- 
ing myself to the business I had taken in hand, 
was the discovery of my own lamentable ignorance 
in respect of many parts of the vast field of know- 
ledge through which I had undertaken to guide 
others. The second result was a resolution to 
amend this state of things to the best of my 
ability ; to which end, I surveyed the ground ; 
and having made out what were the main posi- 
tions to be captured, I came to the conclusion 
that I must try to carry them by concentrating all 
the energy I possessed upon each in turn. So I 
set to work to know something of my own know- 
ledge of all the various disciplines included under 
the head of Biology ; and to acquaint myself, at first 
hand, with the evidence for and against the extant 
solutions of the greater problems of that science. 
I have reason to believe that wise heads were 
shaken over my apparent divagations — now into 
the province of Physiology or Histology, now into 
that of Comparative Anatomy, of Development, of 
Zoology, of Paleontology, or of Ethnology. But 
even at this time, when I am, or ought to be, so 
much wiser, I really do not see that I could have 



PREFACE Vll 

done better. And my method had this great ad- 
vantage ; it involved the certainty that somebody 
would profit by my effort to teach properly. What- 
ever my hearers might do, I myself always learned 
something by lecturing. And to those who have 
experience of what a heart-breaking business 
teaching is — how much the can't-learns and won't- 
learns and don't-learns predominate over the do- 
learns — will understand the comfort of that re- 
flection. 

Among the many problems which came under 
my consideration, the position of the human 
species in zoological classification was one of the 
most serious. Indeed, at that time, it was a burn- 
ing question in the sense that those who touched 
it were almost certain to burn their fingers severely. 
It was not so very long since my kind friend Sir 
William Lawrence, one of the ablest men whom 
I have known, had been well-nigh ostracized 
for his book " On Man/' which now might be read 
in a Sunday-school without surprising anybody ; 
it was only a few years, since the electors to the 
chair of Natural History in a famous northern 
university had refused to invite a very distinguished 
man to occupy it because he advocated the 
doctrine of the diversity of species of mankind, 
or what was called " polygeny." Even among those 
who considered man from the point of view, not of 
vulgar prejudice, but of science, opinions lay poles 
asunder. Linnseus had taken one view, Cuvier 



Vlll PREFACE 

another; and, among my senior contemporaries, men 
like Lyell, regarded by many as revolutionaries of 
the deepest dye, were strongly opposed to anything 
which tended to break down the barrier between 
man and the rest of the animal world. 

My own mind was by no means definitely made 
up about this matter when, in the year 1857, a 
paper was read before the Linnaean Society " On 
the Characters, Principles of Division and Primary 
Groups of the Class Mammalia," in which certain 
anatomical features of the brain were said to be 
" peculiar to the genus Homo" and were made 
the chief ground for separating that genus from all 
other mammals, and placing him in a division, 
" Archencephala," apart from, and superior to, all 
the rest. As these statements did not agree with 
the opinions I had formed, I set to work to rein- 
vestigate the subject; and soon satisfied myself 
that the structures in question were not peculiar to 
Man, but were shared by him with all the higher 
and many of the lower apes. I embarked in no 
public discussion of these matters; but my 
attention being thus drawn to them, I studied the 
whole question of the structural relations of Man 
to the next lower existing forms, with much care. 
And, of course, I embodied my conclusions in 
my teaching. 

Matters were at this point, when " The Origin of 
Species " appeared. The weighty sentence " Light 
will be thrown on the origin of man and his 



PREFACE IX 

history" (1st ed. p. 488) was not only in full 
harmony with the conclusions at which I had 
arrived, respecting the structural relations of 
apes and men, but was strongly supported by 
them. And inasmuch as Development and Verte- 
brate Anatomy were not among Mr. Darwin's 
many specialities, it appeared to me that I should 
not be intruding on the ground he had made 
his own, if I discussed this part of the general 
question. In fact, I thought that I might probably 
serve the cause of evolution by doing so. 

Some experience of popular lecturing had 
convinced me that the necessity of making things 
plain to uninstructed people, was one of the very 
best means of clearing up the obscure corners in 
one's own mind. So, in 1860, I took the Relation 
of Man to the Lower Animals, for the subject of 
the six lectures to working men which it was my 
duty to deliver. It was also in 1860, that this 
topic was discussed before a jury of experts, at 
the meeting of the British Association at Oxford ; 
and, from that time, a sort of running fight on 
the same subject was carried on, until it cul- 
minated at the Cambridge meeting of the 
Association in 1862, by my friend Sir W. 
Flower's public demonstration of the existence 
in the apes of those cerebral characters which had 
been said to be peculiar to man. 

u Magna est Veritas et prsevalebit ! " Truth is 
great, certainly, but, considering her greatness, it is 



X PKEFACE 

curious what a long time she is apt to take about 
prevailing. When, towards the end of 1862, I 
had finished writing " Man's Place in Nature/' 
I could say with a good conscience, that ray- 
conclusions "had not been formed hastily or 
enunciated crudely." I thought I had earned 
the right to publish them and even fancied I 
might be thanked, rather than reproved, for so 
doing. However, in my anxiety to promulgate 
nothing erroneous, I asked a highly competent 
anatomist and very good friend of mine to look 
through my proofs and, if he could, point out any 
errors of fact. I was well pleased when he 
returned them without criticism on that score ; 
but my satisfaction was speedily dashed by the 
very earnest warning, as to the consequences of 
publication, which my friend's interest in my 
welfare led him to give. But, as I have confessed 
elsewhere, when I was a young man, there was 
just a little — a mere soupQon — in my composition 
of that tenacity of purpose which has another 
name ; and I felt sure that all the evil things 
prophesied would not be so painful to me as the 
giving up that which I had resolved to do, upon 
grounds which I conceived to be right. So the 
book came out ; and I must do my friend the 
justice to say that his forecast was completely 
justified. The Boreas of criticism blew his 
hardest blasts of misrepresentation and ridicule 
for some years ; and I was even as one of the 



PREFACE Xi 

wicked. Indeed, it surprises me, at times, to 
think how any one who had sunk so low could 
since have emerged into, at any rate, relative 
respectability. Personally, like the non-corvine 
personages in the Ingoldsby legend, I did not feel 
" one penny the worse." Translated into several 
languages, the book reached a wider public than 
I had ever hoped for ; being largely helped, I 
imagine, by the Ernulphine advertisements to 
which I have referred. It has had the honour 
of being freely utilized, without acknowledg- 
ment, by writers of repute; and, finally, it 
achieved the fate, which is the euthanasia of a 
scientific work, of being inclosed among the rubble 
of the foundations of later knowledge and for- 
gotten. 

To my observation, human nature has not 
sensibly changed during the last thirty years. 
I doubt not that there are truths as plainly 
obvious and as generally denied, as those con- 
tained in " Man's Place in Nature/' now await- 
ing enunciation. If there is a young man of the 
present generation, who has taken as much trouble 
as I did to assure himself that they are truths, let 
him come out with them, without troubling his 
head about the barking of the dogs of St. Ernul- 
phus. " Veritas praevalebit " — some day ; and, even 
if she does not prevail in his time, he himself will 
be all the better and the wiser for having tried to 
help her. And let him recollect that such great 



XU PKEFACE 

reward is full payment for all his labour and 
pains. 

" Man's Place in Nature," perhaps, may still 
be useful as an introduction to the subject; but, 
as any interest which attaches to it must be 
mainly historical, I have thought it right to 
leave the essays untouched. The history of the 
long controversy about the structure of the brain, 
following upon the second dissertation, in the 
original edition, however, is omitted. The verdict 
of science has long since been pronounced upon 
the questions at issue ; and no good purpose can 
be served by preserving the memory of the details 
of the suit. 

In many passages, the reader who is acquainted 
with the present state of science, will observe 
much room for addition; but, in all cases, the 
supplements required, are, I believe, either in- 
different to the argument or would strengthen it. 



CONTENTS 
i 



PAGE 
ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 1 



II 

ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 77 

III 
ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 157 

ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY [1865] . 209 

V 

ON SOME FIXED TOINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY [1871] 253 

VI 

ON THE ARYAN QUESTION [1890] 271 

%* The first three Essays were published in January, 1863, 
under the title of " Man's Place in Nature " ; the fourth essay 
appeared in the Fortnightly Review, the fifth in the Contemporary 
Review, and they were republished in Critiques and Addresses. 
The Essay on the Aryan Question appeared in the Nineteenth 
Century for November, 1890. 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

Advertisement to the Reader 

The greater part of the substance of the fol- 
lowing Essays has already been published in the 
form of Oral Discourses, addressed to widely 
different audiences during the past three years* 

Upon the subject of the second Essay, I delivered 
six Lectures to the Working Men in 1860, and 
two, to the members of the Philosophical Institu- 
tion of Edinburgh in 1862. The readiness with 
which my audience followed my arguments, on 
these occasions, encourages me to hope that I 
have not committed the error, into which working 
men of science so readily fall, of obscuring my 
meaning by unnecessary technicalities : while, the 
length of the period during which the subject, 
tinder its various aspects, has been present to my 
mind, may suffice to satisfy the Reader that, my 
conclusions., be they right or be they wrong, have 
not been formed hastily or enunciated crudely. 

T. H. H. 

London : January, 1863. 



ON THE NATUKAL HISTORY OF THE 
MAN-LIKE APES 

Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe 
processes of modern investigation, commonly 
enough fade away into mere dreams : but it is 
singular how often the dream turns out to have 
been a half-waking one, presaging a reality. 
Ovid foreshadowed the discoveries of the geo- 
logist: the Atlantis was an imagination, but 
Columbus found a western world : and though the 
quaint forms of Centaurs and Satyrs have an 
existence only in the realms of art, creatures 
approaching man more nearly than they in 
essential structure, and yet as thoroughly brutal 
as the goat's or horse's half of the mythical 
compound, are now not only known, but notorious. 

I have not met with any notice of one of 
these Man-like Apes of earlier date than that 
contained in Pigafetta's " Description of the 
165 



THE MAN-LIKE APES 



kingdom of Congo/' x drawn up from the notes 
of a Portuguese sailor, Eduardo Lopez, and pub- 
lished in 1598. The tenth chapter of this work 
is entitled " De Animalibus quae in hac provincia 




Fig. 1. — Simise magnatum delicise. — De Bry, 1598. 

reperiuntur/ , and contains a brief passage to the 
effect that " in the Songan country, on the banks 
of the Zaire, there are multitudes of apes, which 



1 Regnum Congo : hoc est Yera Descriptio Regni 
Africani quod tam ab incolis quam Lusitanis Congus 
appellatur, per Philippum Pigafettam, olim ex Edoardo 
Lopez acroamatis lingua Italica excerpta, num Latio sermone 
donata ab August. Cassiod. Reinio. Iconibus et imaginibus 
rerum memorabilium quasi vivis, opera et industria Joan. 
Theodori et Joan. Israelis de Bry, fratrum exornata. Franco- 
furti, mdxcviii. 



T THE PONGO AND ENGECO 3 

afford great delight to the nobles by imitating 
human gestures." As this might apply to almost 
any kind of apes, I should have thought little 
of it, had not the brothers De Bry, whose 
engravings illustrate the work, thought fit, in 
their eleventh " Argumentum," to figure two of 
these "Simige magnatum delicise." So much of 
the plate as contains these apes is faithfully copied 
in the woodcut (Fig, 1), and it will be observed 
that they are tail-less, long-armed, and large- 
eared ; and about the size of Chimpanzees. It 
may be that these apes are as much figments of 
the imam nation of the ingenious brothers as the 
winged, two-legged, crocodile-headed dragon which 
adorns the same plate ; or, on the other hand, it 
may be that the artists have constructed their 
drawings from some essentially faithful description 
of a Gorilla or a Chimpanzee. And, in either 
case, though these figures are worth a passing- 
notice, the oldest trustworthy and definite 
accounts of any animal of this kind date from 
the 17th century, and are due to an Englishman. 
The first edition of that most amusing old 
book, "Purchas his Pilgrimage," was published 
in 1613, and therein are to be found many 
references to the statements of one whom Purchas 
terms <f Andrew Battell (my neere neighbour, 
dwelling at Leigh in Essex) who served under 
Manuel Silvera Perera, Governor under the King 
of Spaine, at his city of Saint Paul, and with him 



4* THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

went farre into the countrey of Angola " ; and 
again, " my friend, Andrew Battle, who lived in 
the kingdom of Congo many yeares," and who, 
" upon some quarell betwixt the Portugals (among 
whom he was a sergeant of a band) and him, 
lived eight or nine moneths in the woodes." 
From this weather-beaten old soldier, Purchas 
was amazed to hear " of a kinde of Great Apes, 
if they might so bee termed, of the height of a 
man, but twice as bigge in feature of their limmes, 
with strength proportionable, hairie all over, 
otherwise altogether like men and women in their 
whole bodily shape. 1 They lived on such wilde 
fruits as the trees and woods yielded, and in the 
night time lodged on the trees." 

This extract is, however, less detailed and clear 
in its statements than a passage in the third 
chapter of the second part of another work — 
"Purchas his Pilgrimes," published in 1625, by 
the same author — which has been often, though 
hardly ever quite rightly, cited. The chapter is 
entitled, "The strange adventures of Andrew 
Battell, of Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals 
prisoner to Angola, who lived there and in the 
adioining regions neere eighteene yeeres." And 
the sixth section of this chapter is headed — " Of 
the Provinces of Bongo, Calongo, Mayombe, Mani- 
kesocke, Motimbas : of the Ape Monster Pongo, 

1 "Except this that their legges had no calves."— [Ed. 1626.] 
And in a marginal note, " These great apes are called Pongo' s. " 



I THE PONGO 5 

their hunting : Idolatries ; and divers other 
observations/' 

"This province (Calongo) toward the east bordereth upon 
Bongo, and toward the north upon Mayombe, which is nineteen 
leagues from Longo along the coast. 

* ' This province of Mayombe is all woods and groves, so over- 
growne that a man may travaile twentie days in the shadow 
without any sunne or heat. Here is no kind of corne nor 
graine, so that the people liveth onely upon plantanes and 
roots of sundrie sorts, very good ; and nuts ; nor any kinde of 
tame cattell, nor hens. 

' ' But they have great store of elephants' flesh, which they 
greatly esteeme, and many kinds of wild beasts ; and great 
store of fish. Here is a great sandy bay, two leagues to the 
northward of Cape Negro, 1 which is the port of Mayombe. 
Sometimes the Portugals lade logwood in this bay. Here is 
a great river, called Banna : in the winter it hath no barre, 
because the generall winds cause a great sea. But when the 
sunne hath his south declination, then a boat may goe in ; for 
then it is smooth because of the raine. This river is very great, 
and hath many ilands and people dwelling in them. The 
woods are so covered with baboones, monkies, apes and parrots, 
that it will feare any man to travaile in them alone. Here are 
also two kinds of monsters, which are common in these woods, 
and very dangerous. 

" The greatest of these two monsters is called Pongo in their 
language, and the lesser is called Engeco. This Pongo is in 
all proportion like a man ; but that he is more like a giant 
in stature than a man ; for he is very tall, and hath a man's 
face, hollow-eyed, with long haire upon his browes. His 
face and eares are without haire, and his hands also. His 
bodie is full of haire, but not very thicke ; and it is of a dunnish 
colour. 

* ' He difFereth not from a man but in his legs ; for they have 

1 Purchas' note. — Cape Negro is in 16 degrees south of the 
line. 



6 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

no calfe. Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, and carrieth his 
hands clasped in the nape of his necke when he goeth upon the 
ground. They sleepe in the trees, and build shelters for the 
raine. They feed upon fruit that they find in the woods, and 
upon nuts, for they eate no kind of flesh. They cannot speake, 
and have no understanding more than a beast. The people of 
the countrie, when they travaile in the woods make fires where 
they sleepe in the night ; and in the morning when they are 
gone, the Pongoes will come and sit about the fire till it goeth 
out ; for they have no understanding to lay the wood together. 
They goe many together and kill many negroes that travaile in 
the woods. Many times they fall upon the elephants which 
come to feed where they be, and so beate them with their 
clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that they will runne roaring 
away from them. Those Pongoes are never taken alive 
because they are so strong, that ten men cannot hold one of 
them ; but yet they take many of their young ones with 
poisoned arrowes. 

"The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly with his 
hands fast clasped about her, so that when the countrie people 
kill any of the females they take the young one, which hangeth 
fast upon his mother. 

"When they die among themselves, they cover the dead with 
great heaps of boughs and wood, which is commonly found in 
the forest." x 

It does not appear difficult to identify the 
exact region of which Battell speaks. Longo is 

1 Purclias marginal note, p. 982 : — "The Pongo a giant ape. 
He told me in conference with him, that one of these Pongoes 
tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them. For 
they hurt not those which they surprise at unawares, except 
they look on them ; which he avoyded. He said their highth 
was like a man's, but their bignesse twice as great. I saw the 
negro boy. "What the other monster should be he hath for- 
gotten to relate ; and these papers came to my hand since his 
death, which, otherwise, in my often conferences, I might 
have learned. Perhaps he meaneth the Pigmy Pongo killers 
mentioned." 



I THE PONGO 7 

doubtless the name of the place usually spelled 
Loango on our maps. Mayombe still lies some 
nineteen leagues northward from Loango, along 
the coast ; and Cilongo or Kilonga, Manikesocke, 
and Motimbas are yet registered by geographers. 
The Cape Negro of Battell, however, cannot be 
the modern Cape Negro in 16° S., since Loango 
itself is in 4° S. latitude. On the other hand, the 
-' great river called Banna " corresponds very well 
with the " Camma " and " Fernand Vas," of 
modern geographers, which form a great delta on 
this part of the African coast. 

Now this " Camma " country is situated about 
a degree and a-half south of the Equator, while a 
few miles to the north of the line lies the Gaboon, 
and a degree or so north of that, the Money River 
— both well known to modern naturalists as 
localities where the largest of man-like Apes has 
been obtained. Moreover, at the present day, the 
word Engeco, or N'schego, is applied by the 
natives of these regions to the smaller of the two 
great Apes which inhabit them ; so that there can 
be no rational doubt that Andrew Battell spoke 
of that which he knew of his own knowledge, or, 
at any rate, by immediate report from the natives 
of Western Africa. The "Engeco," however, is 
that "other monster" whose nature Battell 
"forgot to relate," while the name "Pongo" — 
applied to the animal whose characters and habits 
are so fully and carefully described — seems to 



8 THE MAN-LIKE APES I 

have died out, at least in its primitive form and 
signification. Indeed, there is evidence that not 
only in Battell's time, but up to a very recent 
date, it was used in a totally different sense from 
that in which he employs it. 

For example, the second chapter of Purchas' 
work, which I have just quoted, contains " A 
Description and Historicall Declaration of the 
Golden Kingdom of Guinea, &c. &c„ Translated 
from the Dutch, and compared also with the 
Latin," wherein it is stated (p. 986) that — 

"The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles northward 
from Rio de Angra, and eight miles northward from Cape 
de Lope Gonsalvez (Cape Lopez), and is right under the 
Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles from St. Thomas, and 
is a great land, well and easily to be knowne. At the mouth 
of the river there lieth a sand, three or foure fathoms deepe, 
whereon it beateth mightily with the streame which runneth 
out of the river into the sea. This river, in the mouth thereof, 
is at least four miles broad ; but when you are about the 
Hand called Pongo, it is not above two miles broad. . . . 

On both sides the river there standeth many trees 

The Hand called Pongo, which hath a monstrous high hill." 

The French naval officers, whose letters are 
appended to the late M. Isidore Geoff. Saint 
Hilaire's excellent essay on the Gorilla, 1 note in 
similar terms the width of the Gaboon, the trees 
that line its banks down to the waters edge, and 
the strong current that sets out of it. They 
describe two islands in its estuary; — one low, 

1 Archives du Museum, Tome X. 



I THE PONGO 9 

called Perroquet ; the other high, presenting three 
conical hills, called Coniquet ; and one of them, 
M. Franquet, expressly states that, formerly, the 
Chief of Coniquet was called Meni-Pongo, meaning 
thereby Lord of Pongo ; and that the N'Pongues 
(as, in agreement with Dr. Savage, he affirms the 
natives call themselves) term the estuary of the 
Gaboon itself N'Pongo. 

It is so easy, in dealing with savages, to mis- 
understand their applications of words to things, 
that one is at first inclined to suspect Battell of 
having confounded the name of this region, where 
his "greater monster" still abounds, with the 
name of the animal itself. But he is so right 
about other matters (including the name of the 
" lesser monster ") that one is loth to suspect the 
old traveller of error ; and, on the other hand, we 
shall find that a voyager of a hundred years' later 
date speaks of the name " Boggoe," as applied to 
a great Ape, by the inhabitants of quite another 
part of Africa — Sierra Leone. 

But I must leave this question to be settled by 
philologers and travellers ; and I should hardly 
have dwelt so long upon it except for the curious 
part played by this word 'Pongo 3 in the later 
history of the man-like Apes, 

The generation which succeeded Battell saw 
the first of the man-like Apes which was ever 
brought to Europe, or, at any rate, whose visit 
found a historian. In the third book of Tulpius' 



10 



THE MAN-LIKE APES 



" Observationes Medico," published in 1641, the 
56th chapter or section is devoted to what he 
calls Satyrus indims, "called by the Indians 
Orang-autang or Man-of-the- Woods, and by the 
Africans Quoias Morrou." He gives a very good 



JTcmo Sylveftris. 
Qrcmg Outang, 




Fig. 2.— The Orang of Tulpius, 1641. 



figure, evidently from the life, of the specimen of 
this animal, " nostra memoria ex Angola delatum," 
presented to Frederick Henry Prince of Orange. 
Tulpius says it was as big as a child of three years 
old, and as stout as one of six years : and that its 



I TYSON'S PYGMIE 11 

back was covered with black hair. It is plainly a 
young Chimpanzee. 

In the meanwhile, the existence of other, 
Asiatic, man-like Apes became known, but at 
first in a very mythical fashion. Thus Bontius 
(1658) gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous 
account and figure of an animal which he calls 
" Orang-outang " ; and though he says " vidi Ego 
cujus effigiem hie exhibeo," the said effigies (see 
Fig. 6 for Hoppius' copy of it) is nothing but a 
very hairy woman of rather comely aspect, and 
with proportions and feet wholly human. The 
judicious English anatomist, Tyson, was justified 
in saying of this description by Bontius, " I confess 
I do mistrust the whole representation." 

It is to the last-mentioned writer, and 
his coadjutor Cowper, that we owe the first 
account of a man-like ape which has any pre- 
tensions to scientific accuracy and completeness. 
The treatise entitled, " Orang-outang, sive Homo 
Sylvestris ; or the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared 
with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man" 
published by the Royal Society in 1699, is, 
indeed, a work of remarkable merit, and has, in 
some respects, served as a model to subsequent 
inquirers. This " Pygmie/' Tyson tells us " was 
brought from Angola, in Africa ; but was first 
taken a great deal higher up the country " ; its 
hair " was of a coal-black colour and strait," and 
" when it went as a quadruped on all four, 'twas 



12 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

awkwardly ; not placing the palm of the hand flat 
to the ground, but it walk'd upon its knuckles, 
as I observed it to do when weak and had not 
strength enough to support its body," — " From 




Fig. 3. — The "Pygmie" reduced from Tyson's figure 1, 1699. 

the top of the head to the heel of the foot, in a 
strait line, it measured twenty-six inches." 

These characters, even without Tyson's good 
figure (Figs. 3 and 4), would have been sufficient 



TYSON S PYGMIE 



13 



to prove his " Pygmie " to be a young Chimpanzee. 
But the opportunity of examining the skeleton of 
the very animal Tyson anatomised having most 
unexpectedly presented itself to me, I am able to 




Fig. 4. — The " Pygmie " reduced from Tyson's figure 2, 1699. 



bear independent testimony to its being a verit- 
able Troglodytes niger, 1 though still very young. 

1 I am indebted to Dr. Wright, of Cheltenham, whose 
paleontological labours are so well known, for bringing this 



14 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

Although fully appreciating the resemblances be- 
tween his Pygmie and Man, Tyson by no means 
overlooked the differences between the two, and 
he concludes his memoir by summing up first, the 
points in which " the Ourang-outang or Pygmie 
more resembled a Man than Apes and Monkeys 
do," under forty-seven distinct heads ; and then 
giving, in thirty-four similar brief paragraphs, the 
respects in which " the Ourang-outang or Pygmie 
differ' d from a man and resembled more the Ape 
and Monkey kind." 

After a careful survey of the literature of the 
subject extant in his time, our author arrives at 
the conclusion that his " Pygmie " is identical 
neither with the Orangs of Tulpius and Bontius, 
nor with the Quoias Morrou of Dapper (or rather 
of Tulpius), the Barris of d'Arcos, nor with the 
Pongo of Battell ; but that it is a species of ape 
probably identical with the Pygmies of the 
Ancients, and, says Tyson, though it " does so 
much resemble a Man in many of its parts, more 
than any of the ape kind, or any other animal in 
the world, that I know of : yet by no means do I 
look upon it as the product of a mixt generation — 



interesting relic to my knowledge. Tyson's granddaughter, it 
appears, married Dr. Allardyce, a physician of repute in 
Cheltenham, and brought, as part of her dowry, the skeleton of 
the "Pygmie." Dr. Allardyce presented it to the Cheltenham 
Museum, and, through the good offices of my friend Dr. 
Wright, the authorities of the Museum have permitted me to 
borrow, what is, perhaps, its most remarkable ornament. 



I THE MANDRILL 15 

'tis a Brute- Animal sui generis, and a particular 
species of Ape." 

The name of " Chimpanzee," by which one of 
the African Apes is now so well known, appears 
to have come into use in the first half of the 
eighteenth century, but the only important addi- 
tion made, in that period, to our acquaintance with 
the man-like apes of Africa is contained in " A 
New Voyage to Guinea," by William Smith, 
which bears the date 1744. 

In describing the animals of Sierra Leone, 
p. 51, this writer says : — 

" I shall next describe a strange sort of animal, called by the 
white men in this country Mandrill, 1 but why it is so called I 
know not, nor did I ever hear the name before, neither can 
those who call them so tell, except it be for their near resem- 
blance of a human creature, though nothing at all like an Ape. 
Their bodies, when full grown, are as big in circumference as a 
middle-sized man's — their legs much shorter, and their feet 
larger ; their arms and hands in proportion. The head is 
monstrously big, and the face broad and flat, without any other 
hair but the eyebrows ; the nose very small, the mouth wide, 

1 " Mandrill" seems to signify a "man-like ape," the word 
" Drill " or " Dril " having been anciently employed in England 
to denote an Ape or Baboon. Thus in the fifth edition of Blount's 
* i Glossographia, or a Dictionary interpreting the hard words of 
whatsoever language now used in our refined English tongue 
. . . very useful for all such as desire to understand what they 
read," published in 1681, I find, "Dril — a stonecutter's tool 
wherewith he bores little holes in marble, &c. Also a large 
overgrown Ape and Baboon, so called." " Drill" is used in the 
same sense in Charleton's Onomasticon Zoicon, 1668. The 
singular etymology of the word given by Buffon seems hardly a 
probable one. 



16 



THE MAN-LIKE APES 



and the lips thin. The face, which is covered by a white skin, 
is monstrously ugly, being all over wrinkled as with old age ; 
the teeth broad and yellow ; the hands have no more hair than 
the face, but the same white skin, though all the rest of the 
body is covered with long black hair, like a bear. They never 
go upon all-fours, like apes ; but cry, when vexed or teased, just 
like children 




Fig. 5. — Facsimile of William Smith's figure of the (i Mandrill.' 1 

1744. 



'When I was at Sherbro, one Mr. Cummerbus, whom I 
shall have occasion hereafter to mention, made me a present of 
one of these strange animals, which are called by the natives 
Boggoe : it was a she-cub, of six months' age, but even then 
larger than a Baboon, I gave it in charge to one of the slaves, 
who knew how to feed and nurse it, being a very tender sort of 
animal ; but whenever I went off the deck the sailors began to 
teaze it — some loved to see its tears and hear it cry; others 



r LINN.EUS ANTHROPOMORPHA 17 

hated its snotty nose ; one who hurt it, being checked by the 
negro that took care of it, told the slave he was very fond of 
his country-woman, and asked him if he should not like her for 
a wife ? To which the slave very readily replied, * No, this no 
my wife; this a white woman — this fit wife for you.' This 
unlucky wit of the negro's, I fancy, hastened its death, for next 
morning it was found dead under the windlass." 

William Smith's " Mandrill," or " Boggoe," as his 
description and figure testify, was, without doubt, 
a Chimpanzee. 

Linnaeus knew nothing, of his own observation, 
of the man -like Apes of either Africa or Asia, but 
a dissertation by his pupil Hoppius in the 
" Amoenitates Academicae" (VI. " Anthropomor- 
pha ") may be regarded as embodying his views 
respecting these animals. 

The dissertation is illustrated by a plate, of 
which the accompanying woodcut, Fig. 6, is a 
reduced copy. The figures are entitled (from 
left to right 1. Troglodyta Bontii ; 2. Lucifer 
Aldrovandi ; 3. Satyrus Tulpii ; 4. Pygmceus 
Edwardi. The first is a bad copy of Bontius' 
fictitious " Ourang-outang," in whose existence, 
however, Linnaeus appears to have fully believed ; 
for in the standard edition of the " Systema 
Naturae," it is enumerated as a second species of 
Homo; "H. nocturnus." Lucifer Aldrovandi is 
a copy of a figure in Aldrovandus, " De Quadru- 
pedibus digitatis viviparis," Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645) 
entitled " Cercopithecus formae rarae Barbilius 
vocatus et originem a china ducebat." Hoppius 

166 



18 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

is of opinion that this may be one of that cat-tailed 
people, of whom Nicolaus Koping affirms that 
they eat a boat's crew, " gubernator navis " and 
all ! In the " Systema Naturae " Linnaeus calls it 
in a note, Homo caudatus, and seems inclined to 
regard it as a third species of man. According to 
Temminck, Satyrus Tulpii is a copy of the figure 




Fig. 6. — The Anthropomorpha of Linnaeus. 

of a Chimpanzee published by Scotin in 1738, 
which I have not seen. It is the Satyrus indicus 
of the "Systema Naturae," and is regarded by 
Linnaeus as possibly a distinct species from Satyrus 
sylvestris. The last, named Pygmceus Edwardi, is 
copied from the figure of a young " Man of the 
Woods," or true Orang-Utan, given in Edwards' 
"Gleanings of Natural History" (1758). 



I buffon's jocko 19 

Buffon was more fortunate than his great rival. 
Not only had he the rare opportunity of ex- 
amining a young Chimpanzee in the living state, 
but he became possessed of an adult Asiatic man- 
like Ape — the first and the last adult specimen 
of any of these animals brought to Europe for 
many years. With the valuable assistance of 
Daubenton, Buffon gave an excellent description 
of this creature, which, from its singular pro- 
portions, he termed the long-armed Ape, or 
Gibbon. It is the modern Hylobates lar. 

Thus when, in 1766, Buffon wrote the four- 
teenth volume of his great work, he was personally 
familiar with the young of one kind of African 
man-like Ape, and with the adult of an Asiatic 
species — while the Orang-Utan and the Mandrill 
of Smith were known to him by report. Further- 
more, the Abbe Prevost had translated a good 
deal of Purchas' "Pilgrims" into French, in his 
" Histoire generale des Voyages " (1748), and there 
Buffon found a version of Andrew BattelFs 
account of the Pongo and the Engeco. All these 
data Buffon attempts to weld together into 
harmony in this chapter entitled " Les Orang- 
outangs ou le Pongo et le Jocko." To this title 
the following note is appended : — 

"Orang-outang nom de cet animal aux Indes orientales : 
Pongo nom de cet animal a Lowando Province de Congo. 

" Jocko, Enjocko, nom de cet animal a Congo que nous avons 
adopte. En est l'article que nous avons retranche." 



20 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

Thus it was that Andrew Battell's "Engeco" 
became metamorphosed into " Jocko, 5 ' and, in the 
latter shape, was spread all over the world, in 
consequence of the extensive popularity of 
Buffon' s works. The Abbe Prevost and Buffon 
between them however, did a good deal more 
disfigurement to Battell's sober account than 
" cutting off an article." Thus Battell's statement 
that the Pongos "cannot speake, and have no 
understanding more than a beast," is rendered by 
Buffon "qu'il ne peut parler quoiqu'il ait phos 
cTentendement que les metres animaux ;" and again, 
Purchas' affirmation, " He told me in conference 
with him, that one of these Pongos tooke a negro 
boy of his which lived a moneth with them," 
stands in the French version, "un pongo lui en- 
leva un petit negre qui passa un an en tier dans 
la societe de ces animaux." 

After quoting the account of the great Pongo, 
Buffon justly remarks, that all the " Jockos " and 
" Orangs " hitherto brought to Europe were young ; 
and he suggests that, in their adult condition, 
they might be as big as the Pongo or "great 
Orang;" so that, provisionally, he regarded the 
Jockos, Orangs, and Pongos as all of one species. 
And perhaps this was as much as the state of 
knowledge at the time warranted. But how it 
came about that Buffon failed to perceive the 
similarity of Smith's " Mandrill " to his own 
" Jocko," and confounded the former with so 



I buffon's jocko 21 

totally different a creature as the blue-faced 
Baboon, is not so easily intelligible. 

Twenty years later Buffon changed his opinion, 1 
and expressed his belief that the Orangs con- 
stituted a genus with two species, — a large one, 
the Pongo of Battell, and a small one, the Jocko : 
that the small one (Jocko) is the East Indian 
Orang ; and that the young animals from Africa, 
observed by himself and Tulpius, are simply 
young Pongos. 

In the meanwhile, the Dutch naturalist, Vos- 
maer, gave, in 1778, a very good account and 
figure of a young Orang, brought alive to Holland, 
and his countryman, the famous anatomist, Peter 
Camper, published (1779) an essay on the Orang- 
utan of similar value to that of Tyson on the 
Chimpanzee. He dissected several females and a 
male, all of which, from the state of their 
skeleton and their dentition, he justly supposes 
to have been young. However, judging by the 
analogy of man, he concludes that they could not 
have exceeded four feet in height in the adult 
condition. Furthermore, he is very clear as to 
the specific distinctness of the true East Indian 
Orang. 

"The Orang," says he, "differs not only from 

the Pigmy of Tyson and from the Orang of 

Tulpius by its peculiar colour and its long toes, 

but also by its whole external form. Its arms, its 

1 Hisloire Naturclle, Suppl. Tome 7eme, 1789. 



22 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

hands, and its feet are longer, while the thumbs, 
on the contrary, are much shorter, and the great 
toes much smaller in proportion/' 1 And again, 
"The true Orang, that is to say, that of Asia, 
that of Borneo, is consequently not the Pithecus, 
or tail-less Ape, which the Greeks, and especially 
Galen, have described. It is neither the Pongo 
nor the Jocko, nor the Orang of Tulpius, nor the 
Pigmy of Tyson, — it is an animal of a peculiar 
species, as I shall prove in the clearest manner by 
the organs of voice and the skeleton in the 
following chapters" (7. c. p. 64). 

A few years later, M. Radermacher, who held 
a high office in the Government of the Dutch 
dominions in India, and was an active member 
of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, 
published, in the second part of the Transac- 
tions of that Society, 2 a Description of the Island 
of Borneo, which was written between the years 
1779 and 1781, and, among much other interesting 
matter, contains some notes upon the Orang. 
The small sort of Orang-Utan, viz. that of 
Vosmaer and of Edwards, he says, is found only 
in Borneo, and chiefly about Banjermassing, 
Mampauwa, and Landak. Of these he had seen 
some fifty during his residence in the Indies ; but 
none exceeded 2 J feet in length. The larger sort, 

1 Camper, (Euvres, i., p. 56. 

2 Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Tweede 
Dcel. Derde Druk. 1826. 



I THE ORANG-OUTANG 23 

often regarded as a chimaera, continues Rader- 
macher, would perhaps long have remained so, 
had it not been for the exertions of the Resident 
at Rembang, M. Palm, who, on returning from 
Landak towards Pontiana, shot one, and forwarded 
it to Batavia in spirit, for transmission to Europe. 
Palm's letter describing the capture runs 
thus : — " Herewith I send your Excellency, con- 
trary to all expectation (since long ago I offered 
more than a hundred ducats to the natives for an 
Orang-Utan of four or five feet high) an Orang 
which I heard of this morning about eight o'clock. 
For a long time we did our best to take the 
frightful beast alive in the dense forest about 
half way to Landak. We forgot even to eat, so 
anxious were we not to let him escape ; but it 
was necessary to take care that he did not 
revenge himself, as he kept continually breaking 
off heavy pieces of wood and green branches, and 
dashing them at us. This game lasted till four 
o'clock in the afternoon, when we determined to 
shoot him ; in which I succeeded very well, and 
indeed better than I ever shot from a boat 
before ; for the bullet went just into the side of 
his chest, so that he was not much damaged. We 
got him into the prow still living, and bound him 
fast, and next morning he died of his wounds. 
All Pontiana came on board to see him when we 
arrived." Palm gives his height from the head 
to the heel as 49 inches. 



24 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

A very intelligent German officer, Baron Von 
Wurmb, who at this time held a post in the 
Dutch East India service, and was Secretary of 
the Batavian Society, studied this animal, and his 
careful description of it, entitled " Beschrijving 
van der Groote Borneosche Orang-outang of de 
Oost-Indische Pongo," is contained in the same 
volume of the Batavian Society's Transactions. 
After Von Wurmb had drawn up his description 
he states, in a letter dated Batavia, Feb. 18, 1781, 1 
that the specimen was sent to Europe in brandy 
to be placed in the collection of the Prince of 
Orange; "unfortunately/' he continues, "we 
hear that the ship has been wrecked." Von 
Wurmb died in the course of the year 1781, the 
letter in which this passage occurs being the last 
he wrote : but in his posthumous papers, published 
in the fourth part of the Transactions of the 
Batavian Society, there is a brief description, 
with measurements, of a female Pongo four feet 
high. 

Did either of these original specimens, on 
which Von Wurmb's descriptions are based, 
ever reach Europe ? It is commonly supposed 
that they did ; but I doubt the fact. For, 
appended to the memoir "De rOurang-outang," 
in the collected edition of Camper's works, tome 
i., pp. 64-66, is a note by Camper himself. 

1 "Briefe des Herrn v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von 
Wollzogen. Gotha, 1794." 



THE ORANG-OUTANG 



25 



referring to Von Wurmb's papers, and continuing 
thus : — " Heretofore, this kind of ape had never 
been known in Europe. Radermacher has had 
the kindness to send me the skull of one of 
these animals, which measured fifty-three inches, 
or four feet five inches, in height. I have 
sent some sketches of it to M. Soemmering at 




iursi.ev.Se> 



Fig. 7. — The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to Camper, 
after Camper's original sketches, as reproduced by Lucse. 



Mayence, which are better calculated, however, 
to give an idea of the form than of the real size 
of the parts." 

These sketches have been reproduced by 
Fischer and by LucaB, and bear date 1783, 
Soemmering having received them in 1784. 
Had either of Von Wurmb's specimens reached 



26 THE MAN-LIKE APES 1 

Holland, they would hardly have been unknown 
at this time to Camper, who, however, goes on to 
say : — " It appears that since this, some more of 
these monsters have been captured, for an entire 
skeleton, very badly set up, which had been sent 
to the Museum of the Prince of Orange, and 
which I saw only on the 27th of June, 1784, 
was more than four feet high. I examined this 
skeleton again on the 19th December, 1785, 
after it had been excellently put to rights by the 
ingenious Onymus." 

It appears evident, then, that this skeleton, 
which is doubtless that which has always gone by 
the name of Wurmb's Pongo, is not that of the 
animal described by him, though unquestionably 
similar in all essential points, 

Camper proceeds to note some of the most 
important features of this skeleton ; promises to 
describe it in detail by-and-bye ; and is evidently 
in doubt as to the relation of this great " Pongo " 
to his " petit Orang." 

The promised further investigations were never 
carried out ; and so it happened that the Pongo 
of Von Wurmb took its place by the side of the 
Chimpanzee, Gibbon, and Orang as a fourth and 
colossal species of man-like Ape. And indeed 
nothing could look much less like the Chim- 
panzees or the Orangs, then known, than the 
Pongo ; for all the specimens of Chimpanzee and 
Orang which had been observed were small of 



I THE OKANG-OUTANG 27 

stature, singularly human in aspect, gentle and 
docile; while Wurmb's Pongo was a monster 
almost twice their size, of vast strength and 
fierceness, and very brutal in expression ; its great 
projecting muzzle, armed with strong teeth, being 
further disfigured by the outgrowth of the cheeks 
into fleshy lobes. 

Eventually, in accordance with the usual 
marauding habits of the Revolutionary armies, 
the " Pongo " skeleton was carried away from 
Holland into France, and notices of it, expressly 
intended to demonstrate its entire distinctness from 
the Orang and its affinity with the baboons, were 
given, in 1798, by Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier. 

Even in Cuvier's " Tableau Elementaire," and 
in the first edition of his great work, the " Eegne 
Animal/' the " Pongo " is classed as a species of 
Baboon. However, so early as 1818, it appears 
that Cuvier saw reason to alter this opinion, and 
to adopt the view suggested several years before 
by Blumenbach, 1 and after him by Tilesius, that 
the Bornean Pongo is simply an adult Orang. In 
1824, Rudolphi demonstrated, by the condition 
of the dentition, more fully and completely than 
had been done by his predecessors, that the 
Orangs described up to that time were all young 
animals, and that the skull and teeth of the adult 

1 See Blumenbach AlMldungenKahirhistoHchen Gegenstande, 
No. 12, 1810 ; and Tilesius, Naturhistoriclie FriLchte der ersten 
Kaiser lich-Eussischen Erdumsegelung, p. 115, 1813. 



28 THE MAN-LIKE APES 1 

would probably be such as those seen in the 
Pongo of Wurmb. In the second edition of the 
" Regne Animal" (1829), Cuvier infers, from the 
" proportions of all the parts " and " the arrange- 
ments of the foramina and sutures of the head," 
that the Pongo is the adult of the Orang-Utan, 
" at least of a very closely allied species/' and 
this conclusion was eventually placed beyond all 
doubt by Professor Owen s Memoir published in 
the "Zoological Transactions" for 1835, and by 
Temminck in his " Monographies cle Mammalogie." 
Temminck's memoir is remarkable for the com- 
pleteness of the evidence which it affords as to 
the modification which the form of the Orang 
undergoes according to age and sex. Tiedemann 
first published an account of the brain of the 
young Orang, while Sandifort, Muller and 
Schlegel, described the muscles and the viscera 
of the adult, and gave the earliest detailed and 
trustworthy history of the habits of the great 
Indian Ape in a state of nature ; and as 
important additions have been made by later 
observers, we are at this moment better ac- 
quainted with the adult of the Orang-Utan, 
than with that of any of the other greater 
man-like Apes. 

It is certainly the Pongo of Wurmb ; 1 and it is 
as certainly not the Pongo of Battell, seeing that 

1 Speaking broadly and without prejudice to the question, 
whether there be more than one species of Orang 



I THE CHIMPANZEE 29 

the Orang-TJtan is entirely confined to the great 
Asiatic islands of Borneo and Sumatra. 

And while the progress of discovery thus cleared 
up the history of the Orang, it also became 
established that the only other man-like Apes in 
the eastern world were the various species of 
Gibbon — Apes of smaller stature, and therefore 
attracting less attention than the Orangs, though 
they are spread over a much wider range of country, 
and are hence more accessible to observation. 

Although the geographical area inhabited by 
the " Pongo " and " Engeco 33 of Battell is so much 
nearer to Europe than that in which the Orang 
and Gibbon are found, our acquaintance with the 
African Apes has been of slower growth ; indeed, 
it is only within the last few years that the truth- 
ful story of the old English adventurer has been 
rendered fully intelligible. It was not until 1835 
that the skeleton of the adult Chimpanzee became 
known, by the publication of Professor Owen's 
above-mentioned very excellent memoir " On the 
Osteology of the Chimpanzee and Orang," in the 
Zoological Transactions — a memoir which, by the 
accuracy of its descriptions, the carefulness of its 
comparisons, and the excellence of its figures, 
made an epoch in the history of our knowledge of 
the bony framework, not only of the Chimpanzee, 
but of all the anthropoid Apes. 

By the investigations herein detailed, it became 



30 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

evident that the old Chimpanzee acquired a size 
and aspect as different from those of the young 
known to Tyson, to Buffon, and to Traill, as those 
of the old Orang from the young Orang ; and the 
subsequent very important researches of Messrs. 
Savage and Wyman, the American missionary 
and anatomist, have not only confirmed this con- 
clusion, but have added many new details. 1 

One of the most interesting among the many 
valuable discoveries made by Dr. Thomas Savage 
is the fact, that the natives in the Gaboon country 
at the present day, apply to the Chimpanzee a 
name — " Enche-eko " — which is~ obviously identi- 
cal with the "Engeko" of Battell; a discovery 
which has been confirmed by all later inquirers. 
Battell's " lesser monster " being thus proved to 
be a veritable existence, of course a strong pre- 
sumption arose that his "greater monster," the 
" Pongo," would sooner or later be discovered. 
And, indeed, a modern traveller, Bowdich, had, in 
1819, found strong evidence, among the natives, 
of the existence of a second great Ape, called the 
" Ingena," " five feet high, and four across the 
shoulders/' the builder of a rude house, on the 
outside of which it slept. 

1 See " Observations on the external characters and habits of 
the Troglodytes niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M.D., and on its 
organization, by Jeffries Wyman, M.D.," Boston Journal of 
Natural History, vol. iv. 1843-4 ; and " External characters, 
habits, and osteology of Troglodytes Gorilla," by the same 
authors, ibid. vol. v. 1847. 



I THE GORILLA 31 

In 1847, Dr. Savage had the good fortune to make 
another and most important addition to our know- 
ledge of the man-like Apes; for, being unexpectedly 
detained at the Gaboon river, he saw in the house 
of the Rev. Mr. Wilson, a missionary resident 
there, " a skull represented by the natives to be a 
monkey-like animal, remarkable for its size, 
ferocity, and habits." From the contour of the 
skull, and the information derived from several 
intelligent natives, " I was induced," says Dr. 
Savage (using the term Orang in its old general 
sense) "to believe that it belonged to a new 
species of Orang. I expressed this opinion to Mr. 
Wilson, with a desire for further investigation ; 
and, if possible, to decide the point by the inspec- 
tion of a specimen alive or dead." The result of 
the combined exertions of Messrs. Savage and 
Wilson was not only the obtaining of a very full 
account of the habits of this new creature, but a 
still more important service to science, the enabling 
the excellent American anatomist already men- 
tioned, Professor Wyman, to describe, from ample 
materials, the distinctive osteological characters 
of the new form. This animal was called by the 
natives of the Gaboon " Enge-ena," a name obvi- 
ously identical with the " Ingena " of Bowdich ; 
and Dr. Savage arrived at the conviction that this 
last discovered of all the great Apes was the long- 
sought " Pongo " of Battell. 

The justice of this conclusion, indeed, is beyond 



32 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

doubt — for not only does the " Enge-ena " agree 
with BattelFs "greater monster" in its hollow 
eyes, its great stature, and its dun or iron-grey 
colour, but the only other man-like Ape which in- 
habits these latitudes — the Chimpanzee — is at 
once identified, by its smaller size, as the " lesser 
monster/' and is excluded from any possibility of 
being the " Pongo," by the fact that it is black and 
not dun, to say nothing of the important circum- 
stance already mentioned that it still retains the 
name of " Engeko," or " Enche-eko," by which 
Battell knew it. 

In seeking for a specific name for the " Enge- 
ena," however, Dr. Savage wisely avoided the 
much misused " Pongo " ; but finding in the 
ancient Periplus of Hanno the word " Gorilla " 
applied to certain hairy savage people, discovered 
by the Carthaginian voyager in an island on the 
African coast, he attached the specific name 
" Gorilla " to his new ape, whence arises its 
present well-known appellation. But Dr. Savage, 
more cautious than some of his successors, by no 
means identifies his ape with Hanno's " wild men." 
He merely says that the latter were "probably 
one of the species of the Orang;" and I quite 
agree with M. Brulle, that there is no ground 
for identifying the modern " Gorilla " with that 
of the Carthaginian admiral. 

Since the memoir of Savage and Wyman was 
published, the skeleton of the Gorilla has been 



I THE GIBBONS 33 

investigated by Professor Owen and by the late 
Professor Duvernoy, of the Jardin des Plantes, 
the latter having further supplied a valuable ac- 
count of the muscular system and of many of the 
other soft parts; while African missionaries and 
travellers have confirmed and expanded the ac- 
count originally given of the habits of this great 
man-like Ape, which has had the singular fortune 
of being the first to be made known to the 
general world and the last to be scientifically 
investigated. 

Tw^o centuries and a half have passed away 
since Battell told his stories about the " greater " 
and the " lesser monsters " to Purchas, and it has 
taken nearly that time to arrive at the clear 
result that there are four distinct kinds of 
Anthropoids — in Eastern Asia, the Gibbons and 
the Orangs ; in Western Africa, the Chimpanzees 
and the Gorilla. 

The man-like Apes, the history of the discovery 
of which has just been detailed, have certain charac- 
ters of structure and of distribution in common. 
Thus they all have the same number of teeth as 
man — possessing four incisors, two canines, four 
false molars, and six true molars in each jaw, or 
32 teeth in all, in the adult condition ; while the 
milk dentition consists of 20 teeth — or four incisors, 
two canines, and four molars in each jaw. They 
are what are called catarrhine Apes —that is, their 
167 



34 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

nostrils have a narrow partition and look down- 
wards; and, furthermore, their arms are always 
longer than their legs, the difference being some- 
times greater and sometimes less ; so that if the 
four were arranged in the order of the length of 
their arms in proportion to that of their legs, we 
should have this series — Orang (If — 1), Gibbon 
(1-i — 1), Gorilla (1^—1), Chimpanzee (l r V — 1). 
In all, the fore limbs are terminated by hands, 
provided with longer or shorter thumbs ; while 
the great toe of the foot, always smaller than in 
Man, is far more movable than in him and can be 
opposed, like a thumb, to the rest of the foot. 
None of these apes have tails, and none of them 
possess the cheek-pouches common among mon- 
keys. Finally, they are all inhabitants of the old 
world. 

The Gibbons are the smallest, slenderest, and 
longest-limbed of the man-like apes : their arms 
are longer in proportion to their bodies than those 
of any of the other man-like Apes, so that they 
can touch the ground when erect; their hands 
are longer than their feet, and they are the only 
Anthropoids which possess callosities like the lower 
monkeys. They are variously coloured. The 
Orangs have arms which reach to the ankles in 
the erect position of the animal ; their thumbs 
and great toes are very short, and their feet are 
longer than their hands. They are covered with 
reddish brown hair, and the sides of the face, in 



I THE GIBBONS 35 

adult males, are commonly produced into two 
crescentic, flexible excrescences, like fatty tu- 
mours. The Chimpanzees have arms which 
reach below the knees ; they have large thumbs 
and great toes ; their hands are longer than their 
feet ; and their hair is black, while the skin of the 
face is pale. The Gorilla, lastly, has arms which 
reach to the middle of the leg, large thumbs and 
great toes, feet longer than the hands, a black 
face, and dark-grey or dun hair. 

For the purpose which I have at present in 
view, it is unnecessary that I should enter into 
any further minutiae respecting the distinctive 
characters of the genera and species into which 
these man-like Apes are divided by naturalists. 
Suffice it to say, that the Orangs and the Gibbons 
constitute the distinct genera, Simia and Hylobates ; 
while the Chimpanzees and Gorillas are by some 
regarded simply as distinct species of one genus, 
Troglodytes ; by others as distinct genera — Trog- 
lodytes being reserved for the Chimpanzees, and 
Gorilla for the Enge-ena or Pongo. 

Sound knowledge respecting the habits and 
mode of life of the man-like Apes has been even 
more difficult of attainment than correct informa- 
tion regarding their structure. 

Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found 
physically, mentally, and morally qualified to 
wander unscathed through the tropical wilds of 



36 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

America and of Asia ; to form magnificent collec- 
tions as he wanders ; and withal to think out 
sagaciously the conclusions suggested by his col- 
lections : but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, 
the dense forests of equatorial Asia and Africa, 
which constitute the favourite habitation of the 
Orang, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla, present 
difficulties of no ordinary magnitude ; and the 
man who risks his life by even a short visit to the 
malarious shores of those regions may well be 
excused if he shrinks from facing the dangers of 
the interior ; if he contents himself with stimu- 
lating the industry of the better seasoned natives, 
and collecting and collating the more or less 
mythical reports and traditions with which they 
are too ready to supply him. 

In such a manner most of the earlier accounts 
of the habits of the man-like Apes originated ; 
and even now a good deal of what passes current 
must be admitted to have no very safe foundation. 
The best information we possess is that, based 
almost wholly on direct European testimony, re- 
specting the Gibbons ; the next best evidence 
relates to the Orangs ; while our knowledge of 
the habits of the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla 
stands much in need of support and enlargement 
by additional testimony from instructed European 
eye-witnesses. 

It will therefore be convenient in endeavouring 
to form a notion of what we are justified in 



I THE GIBBONS 37 

believing about these animals, to commence with 
the best known man-like Apes, the Gibbons and 
Orangs ; and to make use of the perfectly trust- 
worthy information respecting them as a sort of 
criterion of the probable truth or falsehood of 
assertions respecting the others. 

Of the Gibbons, half a dozen species are found 
scattered over the Asiatic islands, Java, Sumatra, 
Borneo, and through Malacca, Siam, Arracan, 
and an uncertain extent of Hindostan, on the 
main land of Asia. The largest attain a few 
inches above three feet in height, from the 
crown to the heel, so that they are shorter than 
the other man-like Apes ; while the slenderness 
of their bodies renders their mass far smaller in 
proportion even to this diminished height. 

Dr. Salomon Muller, an accomplished Dutch 
naturalist, who lived for many years in the East- 
ern Archipelago, and to the results of whose per- 
sonal experience I shall frequently have occasion 
to refer, states that the Gibbons are true moun- 
taineers, loving the slopes and edges of the hills, 
though they rarely ascend beyond the limit of 
the fig-trees. All day long they haunt the tops of 
the tall trees ; and though, towards evening, they 
descend in small troops to the open ground, 
no sooner do they spy a man than they dart 
up the hill-sides, and disappear in the darker 
valleys. 

All observers testify to the prodigious volume of 




Fig. 8.— A Gibbon {H. pileatus), after Wolf. 



I THE GIBBONS 31) 

voice possessed by these animals. According to 
the writer whom I have just cited, in one of them, 
the Siamang, " the voice is grave and penetrating, 
resembling the sounds g5ek, g5ek, goek, g5ek, 
goek ha ha ha ha haaaaa, and may easily be heard 
at a distance of half a league." While the cry is 
being uttered, the great membranous bag under 
the throat which communicates with the organ of 
voice, the so-called " laryngeal sac/' becomes greatly 
distended, diminishing again when the creature 
relapses into silence. 

M. Duvaucel, likewise, affirms that the cry of the 
Siamang may be heard for miles — making the 
woods ring again. So Mr. Martin * describes the 
cry of the agile Gibbon as " overpowering and 
deafening " in a room, and " from its strength, well 
calculated for resounding through the vast forests." 
Mr. Waterhouse, an accomplished musician as well 
as zoologist, says, " The Gibbons voice is certainly 
much more powerful than that of any singer I ever 
heard." And yet it is to be recollected that this 
animal is not half the height of, and far less bulky 
in proportion than, a man. 

There is good testimony that various species 
of Gibbon readily take to the erect posture. Mr. 
George Bennett, 2 a very excellent observer, in de- 
scribing the habits of a male Hylohatcs syndactylies 
which remained for some time in his possession, 

1 Man and Movkies, p. 423. 

2 Wanderings in New South JVales, vol ii. chap. viii. 1834. 



40 THE MAN-LIKE APES I 

says : " He invariably walks in the erect posture 
when on a level surface ; and then the arms either 
hang down, enabling him to assist himself with his 
knuckles ; or what is more usual, he keeps his 
arms uplifted in nearly an erect position, with the 
hands pendent ready to seize a rope, and climb 
up on the approach of danger or on the obtrusion 
of strangers. He walks rather quick in the erect 
posture, but with a waddling gait, and is soon run 
down if, whilst pursued, he has no opportunity of 
escaping by climbing .... When he walks in 
the erect posture he turns the leg and foot out- 
wards, which occasions him to have a waddling 
gait and to seem bow-legged." 

Dr. Burrough states of another Gibbon, the 
Horlack or Hooluk : 

"They walk erect ; and when placed on the floor, or in an 
open field, balance themselves very prettily, by raising their 
hands over their head and slightly bending the arm at the 
wrist and elbow, and then run tolerably fast, rocking from 
side to side ; and, if urged to greater speed, they let fall their 
hands to the ground, and assist themselves forward, rather 
jumping than running, still keeping the body, however, 
nearly erect.'' 

Somewhat different evidence, however, is given 
by Dr. Winslow Lewis : 1 

" Their only manner of walking was on their 
posterior or inferior extremities, the others being 
raised upwards to preserve their equilibrium, as 

1 Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. i. 1834. 



I THE GIBBONS 41 

rope-dancers are assisted by long poles at fairs. 
Their progression was not by placing one foot before 
the other, but by simultaneously using both, as in 
jumping." Dr. Salomon Mtiller also states that 
the Gibbons progress along the ground by short 
series of tottering jumps, effected only by the hind 
limbs, the body being held altogether upright. 

But Mr. Martin (I. c. p. 418), who also speaks 
from direct observation, says of the Gibbons 
generally : 

" Pre-eminently qualified for arboreal habits, and display- 
ing among the branches amazing activity, the Gibbons are 
not so awkward or embarrassed on a level surface as might 
be imagined. They walk erect, with a waddling or unsteady 
gait, but at a quick pace ; the equilibrium of the body 
requiring to be kept up, either by touching the ground with 
the knuckles, first on one side then on the other, or by up- 
lifting the arms so as to poise it. As with the Chimpanzee, 
the whole of the narrow, long sole of the foot is placed upon 
the ground at once and raised at once, without any elasticity 
of step." 

After this mass of concurrent and independent 
testimony, it cannot reasonably be doubted that 
the Gibbons commonly and habitually assume the 
erect attitude. 

But level ground is not the place where these 
animals can display their very remarkable and 
peculiar locomotive powers, and that prodigious 
activity which almost tempts one to rank them 
among flying, rather than among ordinary climbing 
mammals. 



42 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

Mr. Martin (I. c. p. 430) has given so excellent 
and graphic an account of the movements of a 
Hyldbates agilis, living in the Zoological Gardens, 
in 1840, that I will quote it in full : 

"It is almost impossible to convey in words an idea of the 
quickness and graceful address of her movements : they may 
indeed be termed aerial, as she seems merely to touch in her 
progress the branches among which she exhibits her evolu- 
tions. In these feats her hands and arms are the sole organs 
of locomotion ; her body hanging as if suspended by a rope, 
sustained by one hand (the right for example), she launches 
herself, by an energetic movement, to a distant branch, 
which she catches with the left hand ; but her hold is less 
than momentary : the impulse for the next launch is ac- 
quired : the branch then aimed at is attained by the right 
hand again and quitted instantaneously, and so on in 
alternate succession. In this manner spaces of twelve and 
eighteen feet are cleared, with the greatest ease and un- 
interruptedly, for hours together, without the slightest 
appearance of fatigue being manifested ; and it is evident 
that if more space could be allowed, distances very greatly 
exceeding eighteen feet would be as easily cleared ; so that 
Duvaucel's assertion that he had seen these animals launch 
themselves from one branch to another, forty feet asunder, 
startling as it is, may be well credited. Sometimes, on 
seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw herself, 
by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making 
a revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, 
and continue her progress with undiminished velocity. It is 
singular to observe how suddenly this Gibbon can stop, 
when the impetus given by the rapidity and distance of her 
swinging leaps would seem to require a gradual abatement of 
her movements. In the very midst of her flight a branch is 
seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if by magic, 
quietly seated on it, grasping it with her feet. As suddenly 
she again throws herself into action. 



I THE GIBBONS 43 

"The following facts will convey some notion of her 
dexterity and quickness. A live bird was let loose in her 
apartment ; she marked its flight, made a long swing to a 
distant branch, caught the bird with one hand in her passage, 
and attained the branch with her other hand ; her aim, both 
at the bird and at the branch, being as successful as if one 
object only had engaged her attention. It may be added that 
she instantly bit off the head of the bird, picked its feathers, 
and then threw it down without attempting to eat it. 

" On another occasion this animal swung herself from a 
perch, across a passage at least twelve feet wide, against a 
window which it was thought would be immediately broken : 
but not so ; to the surprise of all, she caught the narrow 
framework between the panes with her hand, in an instant 
attained the proper impetus, and sprang back again to the 
cage she had left — a feat requiring not only great strength, 
but the nicest precision." 

The Gibbons appear to be naturally very gentle, 
but there is very good evidence that they will bite 
severely when irritated — a female Hylobates agilis 
having so severely lacerated one man with her 
long canines, that he died ; while she had injured 
others so much that, by way of precaution, these 
formidable teeth had been filed down ; but, if 
threatened, she would still turn on her keeper 
The Gibbons eat insects, but appear generally to 
avoid animal food. A Siamang, however, was seen 
by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour greedily a live 
lizard. They commonly drink by dipping their 
fingers in the liquid and then licking them. It is 
asserted that they sleep in a sitting posture. 

Duvaucel affirms that he has seen the females 
carry their young to the waterside and there wash 



44 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

their faces, in spite of resistance and cries. They 
are gentle and affectionate in captivity — full of 
tricks and pettishness, like spoiled children, and 
yet not devoid of a certain conscience, as an 
anecdote, told by Mr. Bennett (I. c. p. 156), will 
show. It would appear that his Gibbon had a 
peculiar inclination for disarranging things in the 
cabin. Among these articles, a piece of soap 
would especially attract his notice, and for the 
removal of this he had been once or twice scolded. 
" One morning," says Mr. Bennett, " I was writing, 
the ape being present in the cabin, when casting 
my eyes towards him, I saw the little fellow 
taking the soap. I watched him without his 
perceiving that I did so : and he occasionally 
would cast a furtive glance towards the place 
where I sat. I pretended to write ; he, seeing 
me busily occupied, took the soap, and moved 
away with it in his paw. When he had walked 
half the length of the cabin, I spoke quietly, 
without frightening him. The instant he found 
I saw him, he walked back again, and deposited 
the soap nearly in the same place from whence 
he had taken it. There was certainly something 
more than instinct in that action : he evidently 
betrayed a consciousness of having done wrong 
both by his first and last actions — and what is 
reason if that is not an exercise of it ? " 

The most elaborate account of the natural 




Fig. 9. — An adult male Orang-Utan, after Muller and Schlegel. 



46 THE MAN-LIKE APES f 

history of the Orang-Utan extant, is that given 
in the " Verhandelingen over de Natuurlijke 
Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche overzeesche 
Bezittingen (1839-45)," by Dr. Salomon Miiller 
and Dr. Schlegel, and I shall base what I have to 
say upon this subject almost entirely on their 
statements, adding, here and there, particulars of 
interest from the writings of Brooke, Wallace, 
and others. 

The Orang-Utan would rarely seem to exceed 
four feet in height, but the body is very bulky, 
measuring two-thirds of the height in circum- 
ference. 1 

The Orang-Utan is found only in Sumatra and 
Borneo, and is common in neither of these islands — 
in both of which it occurs always in low, flat 
plains, never in the mountains. It loves the 
densest and most sombre of the forests, which 

1 The largest Orang-Utan, cited by Temminck, measured, 
when standing upright, four feet ; but he mentions having just 
received news of the capture of an Orang five feet three inches 
high. Schlegel and Miiller say that their largest old male 
measured, upright, 1.25 Netherlands " el " ; and from the crown 
to the end of the toes, 1.5 el ; the circumference of the body 
being about 1 el. The largest old female was 1.09 el high, 
when standing. The adult skeleton in the College of Surgeons' 
Museum, if set upright, would stand 3 ft. 6-8 in. from crown to 
sole. Dr. Humphry gives 3 ft. 8 in. as the mean height of 
two Orangs. Of seventeen Orangs examined by Mr. Wallace, 
the largest was 4 ft. 2 in. high, from the heel to the crown of 
the head. Mr. Spencer St. John, however, in his Life in the 
Forests of the Far East, tells us of an Orang of "5 ft. 2 in., 
measuring fairly from the head to the heel," 15 in. across the 
face, and 12 in. round the wrist. It does not appear, however, 
Mr. that St. John measured this Orang himself. 



I THE ORANG 47 

extend from the sea-shore inland, and thus is 
found only in the eastern half of Sumatra, where 
alone such forests occur, though, occasionally, it 
strays over to the western side. 

On the other hand, it is generally distributed 
through Borneo, except in the mountains, or 
where the population is dense. In favourable 
places, the hunter may, by good fortune, see three 
or four in a day. 

Except in the pairing time, the old males 
usually live by themselves. The old females, and 
the immature males, on the other hand, are often 
met w r ith in twos and threes ; and the former 
occasionally have young with them, though the 
pregnant females usually separate themselves, and 
sometimes remain apart after they have given birth 
to their offspring. The young Orangs seem to 
remain unusually long under their mother s protec- 
tion, probably in consequence of their slow growth. 
While climbing, the mother always carries her 
young against her bosom, the young holding on by 
his mother's hair. 1 At what time of life the Orang- 
utan becomes capable of propagation, and how 
long the females go with young, is unknown, but 
it is probable that they are not adult until they 

1 See Mr. Wallace's account of an infant " Orang-utan," in 
the Annals of Natural History for 1856. Mr. Wallace provided 
his interesting charge with an artificial mother of buffalo-skin, 
but the cheat was too successful. The infant's entire experience 
led it to associate teats with hair, and feeling the latter, it spent 
its existence in vain endeavours to discover the former. 



48 THE MAN-LIKE APES I 

arrive at ten or fifteen years of age. A female which 
lived for five years at Batavia, had not attained 
one-third the height of the wild females. It is 
probable that, after reaching adult years, they go 
on growing, though slowly, and that they live to 
forty or fifty years. The Dyaks tell of old Orangs, 
which have not only lost all their teeth, but which 
find it so troublesome to climb, that they maintain 
themselves on windfalls and juicy herbage. 

The Orang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that 
marvellous activity characteristic of the Gibbons. 
Hunger alone seems to stir him to exertion, and 
when it is stilled, he relapses into repose. When 
the animal sits, it curves its back and bows its 
head, so as to look straight down on the ground ; 
sometimes it holds on with its hands by a higher 
branch, sometimes lets them hang phlegmatically 
down by its side — and in these positions the 
Orang will remain, for hours together, in the same 
spot, almost without stirring, and only now and 
then giving utterance to his deep, growling voice. 
By day, he usually climbs from one tree-top to 
another, and only at night descends to the ground, 
and if then threatened with danger, he seeks 
refuge among the underwood. When not hunted, 
he remains a long time in the same locality, and 
sometimes stops for many days on the same tree 
— a firm place among its branches serving him for 
a bed. It is rare for the Orang to pass the night 
in the summit of a large tree, probably because it 



I THE ORANG 49 

is too windy and cold there for him ; but, as soon 
as night draws on, he descends from the height 
and seeks out a fit bed in the lower and darker 
part, or in the leafy top of a small tree, among 
which he prefers Nibong Palms, Pandani, or one of 
those parasitic Orchids which give the primaeval 
forests of Borneo so characteristic and striking 
an appearance. But wherever he determines to 
sleep, there he prepares himself a sort of nest : 
little boughs and leaves are drawn together round 
the selected spot, and bent crosswise over one 
another ; while to make the bed soft, great leaves 
of Ferns, of Orchids, of Pandamtsfascicularis, Ripa 
fruticans, &c., are laid over them. Those which 
Muller saw, many of them being very fresh, were 
situated at a height of ten to twenty-five feet above 
the ground, and had a circumference, on the 
average, of two or three feet. Some were packed 
many inches thick with Pandanus leaves ; others 
were remarkable only for the cracked twigs, which, 
united in a common centre, formed a regular 
platform. " The rude hut" says Sir James Brooke, 
"which they are stated to build in the trees, 
would be more properly called a seat or nest, for 
it has no roof or cover of any sort. The facility 
with which they form this nest is curious, and I 
had an opportunity of seeing a wounded female 
weave the branches together and seat herself, 
within a minute/' 

According to the Dyaks the Orang rarely leaves 

168 



50 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

his bed before the sun is well above the horizon 
and has dissipated the mists. He gets up about 
nine, and goes to bed again about five ; but some- 
times not till late in the twilight. He lies some- 
times on his back; or, by way of change, turns on 
one side or the other, drawing his limbs up to his 
body, and resting his head on his hand. When 
the night is cold, windy, or rainy, he usually 
covers his body with a heap of Pandanus, 
Nipa, or Fern leaves, like those of which his 
bed is made, and he is especially careful to 
wrap up his head in them. It is this habit 
of covering himself up which has probably 
led to the fable that the Orang builds huts in 
the trees. 

Although the Orang resides mostly amid the 
boughs of great trees, during the daytime, he is 
very rarely seen squatting on a thick branch, as 
other apes, and particularly the Gibbons, do. The 
Orang, on the contrary, confines himself to the 
slender leafy branches, so that he is seen right at 
the top of the trees, a mode of life which is closely 
related to the constitution of his hinder limbs, 
and especially to that of his seat. For this is 
provided with no callosities, such as are possessed 
by many of the lower apes, and even by the 
Gibbons ; and those bones of the pelvis, which are 
termed the ischia, and which form the solid 
framework of the surface on which the body rests 
in the sitting posture, are not expanded like those 



I THE ORANG 51 

of the apes which possess callosities, but are more 
like those of man. 

An Orang climbs so slowly and cautiously, 1 as, 
in this act, to resemble a man more than an ape, 
taking great care of his feet, so that injury of 
them seems to affect him far more than it does 
other apes. Unlike the Gibbons, whose forearms 
do the greater part of the work, as they swing 
from branch to branch, the Orang never makes 
even the smallest jump. In climbing, he moves 
alternately one hand and one foot, or, after having 
laid fast hold with the hands, he draws up both 
feet together. In passing from one tree to another, 
he always seeks out a place w T here the twigs of 
both come close together, or interlace. Even 
when closely pursued, his circumspection is 
amazing : he shakes the branches to see if they 
will bear him, and then bending an overhanging 
bough down by throwing his weight gradually 
along it, he makes a bridge from the tree he 
wishes to quit to the next. 1 

On the ground the Orang always goes labori- 
ously and shakily, on all fours. At starting he 
will run faster than a man, though he may soon 
be overtaken. The very long arms which, when 

1 "They are the slowest and least active of all the monkey 
tribe, and their motions are surprisingly awkward and un- 
couth." — Sir James Brooke, in the Proceedings of the Zoological 
Society, 1841. 

2 Mr. Wallace's account of the progression of the Orang 
almost exactly corresponds with this. 



52 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

he runs, are but little bent, raise the body of the 
Orang remarkably, so that he assumes much the 
posture of a very old man bent down by age, and 
making his way along by the help of a stick. In 
walking, the body is usually directed straight for- 
ward, unlike the other apes, which run more or 
less obliquely ; except the Gibbons, who in these 
as in so many other respects, depart remarkably 
from their fellows. 

The Orang cannot put its feet flat on the ground, 
but is supported upon their outer edges, the heel 
resting more on the ground, while the curved toes 
partly rest upon the ground by the upper side of 
their first joint, the two outermost toes of each 
foot completely resting on this surface. The hands 
are held in the opposite manner, their inner edges 
serving as the chief support. The fingers are 
then bent out in such a manner that their fore- 
most joints, especially those of the two innermost 
fingers, rest upon the ground by their upper sides, 
while the point of the free and straight thumb 
serves as an additional fulcrum. 

The Orang never stands on its hind legs, and 
all the pictures, representing it as so doing, are 
as false as the assertion that it defends itself 
with sticks, and the like. 

The long arms are of especial use, not only in 
climbing, but in the gathering of food from boughs 
to which the animal could not trust his weight. 
Figs, blossoms, and young leaves of various kinds, 



I THE ORANG 53 

constitute the chief nutriment of the Orang ; but 
strips of bamboo two or three feet long were found 
in the stomach of a male. They are not known to 
eat living animals. 

Although, when taken young, the Orang-Utan 
soon becomes domesticated, and indeed seems to 
court human society, it is naturally a very wild and 
shy animal, though apparently sluggish and melan- 
choly. The Dyaks affirm, that when the old males 
are wounded with arrows only, they will occasion- 
ally leave the trees and rush raging upon their 
enemies, whose sole safety lies in instant flight, 
as they are sure to be killed if caught. 1 

1 Sir James Brooke, in a letter to Mr. Waterhouse, published 
in^he proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1841, says : — 
"On the habits of the Orangs, as far as I have been able to 
observe them, I may remark that they are as dull and slothful 
as can well be conceived, and on no occasion, when pursuing 
them, did they move so fast as to preclude my keeping pace 
with them easily through a moderately clear forest ; and even 
when obstructions below (such as wading up to the neck) allowed 
them to get away some distance, they were sure to stop and 
allow me to come up. I never observed the slightest attempt 
at defence, and the wood which sometimes rattled about our 
ears was broken by their weight, and not thrown, as some 
persons represent. If pushed to extremity, however, the 
Payypan could not be otherwise than formidable, and one un- 
fortunate man, who, with a party, was trying to catch a large 
one alive, lost two of his fingers, besides being severely bitten 
on the face, whilst the animal finally beat off his pursuers and 
escaped. " 

Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, affirms that he has several 
times observed them throwing down branches when pursued. 
" It is true he does not throw them at a person, but casts them 
down vertically ; for it is evident that a bough cannot be thrown 
to any distance from the top of a lofty tree. In one case a 
female Mias, on a durian tree, kept up for at least ten minutes 
a continuous shower of branches and of the heavy, spined fruits, 



54 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

But, though possessed of immense strength, it 
is rare for the Orang to attempt to defend itself, 
especially when attacked with fire-arms. On such 
occasions he endeavours to hide himself, or to 
escape along the topmost branches of the trees, 
breaking off and throwing down the boughs as he 
goes. When wounded he betakes himself to the 
highest attainable point of the tree, and emits 
a singular cry, consisting at first of high notes, 
which at length deepen into a low roar, not 
unlike that of a panther. While giving out 
the high notes the Orang thrusts out his lips into 
a funnel shape ; but in uttering the low notes he 
holds his mouth wide open, and at the same time 
the great throat bag, or laryngeal sac, becomes 
distended. 

According to the Dyaks, the only animal the 
Orang measures his strength with is the crocodile, 
who occasionally seizes him on his visits to the 
water side. But they say that the Orang is more 
than a match for his enemy, and beats him to 
death, or rips up his throat by pulling the jaws 
asunder ! 

Much of what has been here stated was 

as large as 32-pounders, which most effectually kept us clear of 
the tree she was on. She could be seen breaking them off and 
throwing them down with every appearance of rage, uttering at 
intervals a loud pumping grunt, and evidently meaning mis- 
chief." — ' ' On the Habits of the Orang-Utan," Annals of Natural 
History. 1856. This statement, it will be observed, is quite 
in accordance with that contained in the letter of the Resident 
Palm quoted above (p. 23). 



I THE ORANG 55 

probably derived by Dr. Miiller from the reports 
of his Dyak hunters; but a large male, four feet 
high, lived in captivity, under his observation, 
for a month, and receives a very bad character. 

" He was a very wild beast," says Miiller, " of 
prodigious strength, and false and wicked to the 
last degree. If any one approached he rose up 
slowly with a low growl, fixed his eyes in the 
direction in which he meant to make his attack, 
slowly passed his hand between the bars of his 
cage, and then extending his long arm, gave a 
sudden grip — usually at the face/' He never 
tried to bite (though Orangs will bite one another), 
his great weapons of offence and defence being his 
hands. 

His intelligence was very great; and Miiller 
remarks that though the faculties of the Oranof 
have been estimated too highly, yet Cuvier, had 
he seen this specimen, would not have considered 
its intelligence to be only a little higher than that 
of the dog. 

His hearing was very acute, but the sense of 
vision seemed to be less perfect. The under lip 
was the great organ of touch, and played a very 
important part in drinking, being thrust out like 
a trough, so as either to catch the falling rain, or 
to receive the contents of the half cocoa-nut shell 
full of water with which the Orang was supplied, 
and which, in drinking, he poured into the trough 
thus formed. 



56 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

In Borneo the Orang-Utan of the Malays goes 
by the name of " Mias " among the Dyaks, who 
distinguish several kinds as Mias Pappan, or 
Zimo, Mias Kassu, and Mias Eambi. Whether 
these are distinct species, however, or whether 
they are mere races, and how far any of them are 
identical with the Sumatran Orang, as Mr. 
Wallace thinks the Mias Pappan to be, are 
problems which are at present undecided ; and 
the variability of these great apes is so extensive, 
that the settlement of the question is a matter 
of great difficulty. Of the form called " Mias 
Pappan," Mr. Wallace 1 observes, 

"It is known by its large size, and by the lateral expansion 
of the face into fatty protuberances, or ridges, over the temporal 
muscles, which have been mis-termed callosities., as they are 
perfectly soft, smooth, and flexible. Five of this form, meas- 
ured by me, varied only from 4 feet 1 inch to 4 feet 2 inches in 
height, from the heel to the crown of the head, the girth of the 
body from 3 feet to 3 feet 7 J inches, and the extent of the out- 
stretched arms from 7 feet 2 inches to 7 feet 6 inches ; the width 
of the face from 10 to 13 \ inches. The colour and length of 
the hair varied in different individuals, and in different parts of 
the same individual ; some possessed a rudimentary nail on the 
great toe, others none at all ; but they otherwise present no ex- 
ternal differences on which to establish even varieties of a 
species. 

"Yet, when we examine the crania of these individuals, we 
find remarkable differences of form, proportion, and dimension, 
no two being exactly alike. The slope of the profile, and the 
projection of the muzzle, together with the size of the cranium, 

1 On the Orang-Utan, or Mias of Borneo, Annals of Natural 
History^ 1856. 



I THE ORANG 57 

offer differences as decided as those existing between the most 
strongly marked forms of the Caucasian and African crania in 
the human species. The orbits vary in width and height, the 
cranial ridge is either single or double, either much or little 
developed, and the zygomatic aperture varies considerably in 
size. This variation in the proportions of the crania enables us 
satisfactorily to explain the marked difference presented by the 
single-crested and double-crested skulls, which have been 
thought to prove the existence of two large species of Orang. 
The external surface of the skull varies considerably in 
size, as do also the zygomatic aperture and the temporal 
muscle ; but they bear no necessary relation to each other, a 
small muscle often existing with a large cranial surface, and vice 
versa. Now, those skulls which have the largest and strongest 
jaws and the widest zygomatic aperture, have the muscles so 
large that they meet on the crown of the skull, and deposit the 
bony ridge which separates them, and which is the highest in 
that which has the smallest cranial surface. In those which 
combine a large surface with comparatively weak jaws, and small 
zygomatic aperture, the muscles, on each side, do not extend to 
the crown, a space of from 1 to 2 inches remaining between them, 
and along their margins small ridges are formed. Intermediate 
forms are found, in which the ridges meet only in the hinder 
part of the skull. The form and size of the ridges are therefore 
independent of age, being sometimes more strongly developed in 
the less aged animal. Professor Temminck states that the series 
of skulls in the Ley den Museum shows the same result." 

Mr. Wallace observed two male adult Orangs 
(Mias Kassu of the Dyaks), however, so very 
different from any of these that he concludes 
them to be specifically distinct; they were 
respectively 3 feet 8 J inches and 3 feet 9| inches 
high, and possessed no sign of the cheek ex- 
crescences, but otherwise resembled the larger 
kinds. The skull has no crest, but two bony 



58 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

ridges, If inches to 2 inches apart, as in the 
Simia morio of Professor Owen. The teeth, 
however, are immense, equalling or surpassing 
those of the other species. The females of both 
these kinds, according to Mr. Wallace, are devoid 
of excrescences, and resemble the smaller males, 
but are shorter by 1^ to 3 inches, and their 
canine teeth are comparatively small, subtruncated 
and dilated at the base, as in the so-called Simia 
morio, which is, in all probability, the skull of 
a female of the same species as the smaller males. 
Both males and females of this smaller species 
are distinguishable, according to Mr. Wallace, by 
the comparatively large size of the middle 
incisors of the upper jaw. 

So far as I am aware, no one has attempted to 
dispute the accuracy of the statements which I 
have just quoted regarding the habits of the two 
Asiatic man-like apes ; and if true, they must be 
admitted as evidence, that such an Ape — 

Istly, May readily move along the ground in 
the erect, or semi-erect, position, and without 
direct support from its arms. 

2ndly, That it may possess an extremely loud 
voice, so loud as to be readily heard one or two 
miles. 

3rdly, That it may be capable of great vicious- 
ness and violence when irritated : and this is 
especially true of adult males. 



I THE CHIMPANZEE 59 

4thly, That it may build a nest to sleep in. 

Such being well established facts respecting the 
Asiatic Anthropoids, analogy alone might justify 
us in expecting the African species to offer similar 
peculiarities, separately or combined ; or, at any 
rate, would destroy the force of any attempted a 
'priori argument against such direct testimony 
as might be adduced in favour of their existence. 
And, if the organization of any of the African Apes 
could be demonstrated to fit it better than either 
of its Asiatic allies for the erect position and for 
efficient attack, there would be still less reason for 
doubting its occasional adoption of the upright 
attitude or of aggressive proceedings. 

From the time of Tyson and Tulpius downwards, 
the habits of the young Chimpanzee in a state of 
captivity have been abundantly reported and com- 
mented upon. But trustworthy evidence as to 
the manners and customs of adult anthropoids of 
this species, in their native woods, was almost 
wanting up to the time of the publication of the 
paper by Dr. Savage, to which I have already 
referred ; containing notes of the observations 
which he made, and of the information which he 
collected from sources which he considered trust- 
worthy, while resident at Cape Palmas, at the 
north-western limit of the Bight of Benin. 

The adult Chimpanzees measured by Dr. Savage, 
never exceeded, though the males may almost 
attain, five feet in height. 



60 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

"When at rest the sitting posture is that generally assumed. 
They are sometimes seen standing and walking, but when thus 
detected, they immediately take to all fours, and flee from the 
presence of the observer. Such is their organisation that they 
cannot stand erect, but lean forward. Hence they are seen, 
when standing, with the hands clasped over the occiput, or the 
lumbar region, which would seem necessary to balance or ease 
of posture. 

"The toes of the adult are strongly flexed and turned in- 
wards, and cannot be perfectly straightened. In the attempt 
the skin gathers into thick folds on the back, showing that the 
full expansion of the foot, as is necessary in walking, is un- 
natural. The natural position is on all fours, the body anteriorly 
resting upon the knuckles. These are greatly enlarged, with 
the skin protuberant and thickened like the sole of the foot. 

"They are expert climbers, as one would suppose from their 
organisation. In their gambols they swing from limb to limb 
to a great distance, and leap with astonishing agility. It is not 
unusual to see the ' old folks ' (in the language of an observer) 
sitting under a tree regaling themselves with fruit and friendly 
chat, while their * children ' are leaping around them, and 
swinging from tree to tree with boisterous merriment. 

"As seen here, they cannot be called gregarious, seldom 
more than five, or ten at most, being found together. It has 
been said, on good authority, that they occasionally assemble 
in large numbers, in gambols. My informant asserts that he 
saw once not less than fifty so engaged ; hooting, screaming, 
and drumming with sticks upon old logs, which is done in the 
latter case with equal facility by the four extremities. They do 
not appear ever to act on the offensive, and seldom, if ever 
really, on the defensive. When about to be captured, they 
resist by throwing their arms about their opponent, and 
attempting to draw him into contact with their teeth. " (Savage, 
I.e. p. 384.) 



With respect to this last point Dr. Savage is 
very explicit in another place : 



I THE CHIMPANZEE 61 

" Biting is their principal art of defence. I have seen one 
man who had been thus severely wounded in the feet. 

"The strong development of the canine teeth in the adult 
would seem to indicate a carnivorous propensity ; but in no 
state save that of domestication do they manifest it. At first 
they reject flesh, but easily acquire a fondness for it. The 
canines are early developed, and evidently designed to act the 
important part of weapons of defence. When in contact with 
man almost the first effort of the animal is — to bite. 

"They avoid the abodes of men, and build their habitations 
in trees. Their construction is more that of nests than huts, as 
they have been erroneously termed by some naturalists. They 
generally build not far above the ground. Branches or twigs are 
bent, or partly broken, and crossed, and the whole supported by 
the body of a limb or a crotch. Sometimes a nest will be found near 
the end of a strong leafy branch twenty or thirty feet from the 
ground. One I have lately seen that could not be less than 
forty feet, and more probably it was fifty. But this is an un- 
usual height. 

" Their dwelling-place is not permanent, but changed in 
pursuit of food and solitude, according to the force of circum- 
stances. We more often see them in elevated places ; but this 
arises from the fact that the low grounds, being more favourable 
for the natives' rice -farms, are the oftener cleared, and hence 
are almost always wanting in suitable trees for their nests. . . . 
It is seldom that more than one or two nests are seen upon the 
same tree, or in the same neighbourhood : five have been found, 
but it was an unusual circumstance." . . . 

"They are very filthy in their habits. ... It is a tradition 
with the natives generally here, that they were once members 
of their own tribe : that for their depraved habits they were 
expelled from all human society, and, that through an obstinate 
indulgence of their vile propensities, they have degenerated into 
their present state and organisation. They are, however, eaten by 
them, and when cooked with the oil and pulp of the palm-nut 
considered a highly palatable morsel. 

" They exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence in their 
habits, and, on the part of the mother, much affection for theii 



62 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

young. The second female described was upon a tree when first 
discovered, with her mate and two young ones (a male and a 
female). Her first impulse was to descend with great rapidity 
and make off into the thicket, with her mate and female off- 
spring. The young male remaining behind, she soon returned 
to the rescue. She ascended and took him in her arms, at 
which moment she was shot, the ball passing through the 
fore-arm of the young one, on its way to the heart of the 
mother. . . . 

"In a recent case, the mother, when discovered, remained 
upon the tree with her offspring, watching intently the move- 
ments of the hunter. As he took aim, she motioned with her 
hand, precisely in the manner of a human being, to have him 
desist and go away. When the wound has not proved instantly 
fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of blood by press- 
ing with the hand upon the part, and when this did not 
succeed, to apply leaves and grass .... When shot, they give 
a sudden screech, not unlike that of a human being in sudden 
and acute distress." 

The ordinary voice of the Chimpanzee, however, 
is affirmed to be hoarse, guttural, and not very loud, 
somewhat like " whoo-whoo." (I. c. p. 365.) 

The analogy of the Chimpanzee to the Orang, 
in its nest-building habit and in the mode of form- 
ing its nest, is exceedingly interesting ; while, on 
the other hand, the activity of this ape, and its 
tendency to bite, are particulars in which it rather 
resembles the Gibbons. In extent of geographical 
range, again, the Chimpanzees — which are found 
from Sierra Leone to Congo — remind one of the 
Gibbons, rather than of either of the other man- 
like apes ; and it seems not unlikely that, as is 
the case with the Gibbons, there may be several 



I THE GORILLA 63 

species spread over the geographical area of the 
genus. 

The same excellent observer, from whom I 
have borrowed the preceding account of the habits 
of the adult Chimpanzee, published fifteen years 
ao-o, 1 an account of the Gorilla, which has, in its 
most essential points, been confirmed by subse- 
quent observers, and to which so very little has 
really been added, that in justice to Dr. Savage I 
give it almost in fulL 

" It should be borne in mind that my account is based upon 
the statements of the aborigines of that region (the Gaboon). 
In this connection, it may also be proper for me to remark, 
that having been a missionary resident for several years, study- 
ing, from habitual intercourse, the African mind and character, 
I felt myself prepared to discriminate and decide upon the 
probability of their statements. Besides, being familiar with 
the history and habits of its interesting congener ( Trog. niger, 
Geoff. ), I was able to separate their accounts of the two animals, 
which, having the same locality and a similarity of habit, are 
confounded in the minds of the mass, especially as but few — 
such as traders to the interior and huntsmen — have ever seen 
the animal in question. 

" The tribe from which our knowledge of the animal is derived, 
and whose territory forms its habitat, is the A/pongive, occupying 
both banks of the River Gaboon, from its mouth to some fifty 
or sixty miles upward. . . . 

" If the word 'Pongo' be of African origin, it is probably a 
corruption of the word Mpongwe, the name of the tribe on the 
banks of the Gaboon, and hence applied to the region they 
inhabit. Their local name for the Chimpanzee is Unche-eko, as 

1 Notice of the external characters and habits of Troglodytes 
Gorilla. Boston Journal of Natural History, 1847. 




Fig. 10.— The Gorilla, after Wolf. 



I THE GORILLA 65 

near as it can be Anglicised, from which the common term 
' Jocko ' probably comes. The Mpongwe appellation for its 
new congener is Enge-ena, prolonging the sound of the first 
vowel, and slightly sounding the second. 

"The habitat of the Eng4-ena is the interior of lower Guinea, 
whilst that of the Enche-eko is nearer the sea-board. 

"Its height is about five feet ; it is disproportionately broad 
across the shoulders, thickly covered with coarse black hair, 
which is said to be similar in its arrangement to that of the 
Ench&eko ; with age it becomes gray, which fact has given 
rise to the report that both animals are seen of different 
colours. 

"Head. — The prominent features of the head are, the great 
width and elongation of the face, the depth of the molar region, 
the branches of the lower jaw being very deep and extending 
far backward, and the comparative smallness of the cranial 
portion ; the eyes are very large, and said to be like those of 
the Enche-eko, a bright hazel ; nose broad and flat, slightly 
elevated towards the root ; the muzzle broad, and prominent lips 
and chin, with scattered gray hairs ; the under lip highly mobile, 
and capable of great elongation when the animal is enraged, 
then hanging over the chin ; skin of the face and ears naked, 
and of a dark brown, approaching to black. 

"The most remarkable feature of the head is a high ridge, 
or crest of hair, in the course of the sagittal suture, which 
meets posteriorily with a transverse ridge of the same, but less 
prominent, running round from the back of one ear to the 
other. The animal has the power of moving the scalp freely 
forward and back, and when enraged is said to contract it 
strongly over the brow, thus bringing down the hairy ridge and 
pointing the hair for war d f so as to present an indescribably 
ferocious aspect. 

"Neck short, thick, and hairy ; chest and shoulders very broad, 
said to be fully double the size of the Enche-ekos ; arms very 
long, reaching some way below the knee — the fore-arm much 
the shortest ; hands very large, the thumbs much larger than 
the fingers. . . . 

"The gait is shuffling ; the motion of the body, which is never 
169 



66 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

Upright as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat rolling, ot 
from side to side. The arms being longer than the Chimpanzee, 
it does not stoop as much in walking; like that animal, it 
makes progression by thrusting its arms forward, resting the 
hands on the ground, and then giving the body a half jumping, 
half swinging motion between them. In this act it is said not 
to flex the fingers, as does the Chimpanzee, resting on its 
knuckles, but to extend them, making a fulcrum of the hand. 
When it assumes the walking posture, to which it is said to 
be much inclined, it balances its huge body by flexing its arms 
upward; 




Fig. 11.— Gorilla walking (after Wolff). 

" They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the Chim- 
panzees ; the females generally exceed the other sex in number. 
My informants all agree in the assertion that but one adult 
male is seen in a band ; that when the young males grow up, 
a contest takes place for mastery, and the strongest, by kill- 
ing and driving out the others, establishes himself as the head 
of the community." 

Dr. Savage repudiates the stories about the 
Gorillas carrying off women and vanquishing 
elephants and then adds — 



I THE GORILLA 67 

"Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar to 
those of the Chimpanzee, consisting simply of a few sticks and 
leafy branches, supported by the crotches and limbs of trees : 
they afford no shelter, and are occupied only at night. 

" They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in 
their habits, never running from man, as does the Chimpanzee. 
They are objects of terror to the natives, and are never en- 
countered by them except on the defensive. The few that 
have been captured were killed by elephant hunters and native 
traders, as they came suddenly upon them while passing through 
the forests. 

"It is said that when the male is first seen he gives a 
terrific yell, that resounds far and wide through the forest, 
something like kh — ah ! kh — ah ! prolonged and shrill. His 
enormous jaws are widely opened at each expiration, his under 
lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy ridge and scalp are con- 
tracted upon the brow, presenting an aspect of indescribable 
ferocity. 

"The females and young, at the first cr} r , quickly disappear. 
He then approaches the enemy in great fury, pouring out his 
horrid cries in quick succession. The hunter awaits his approach 
with his gun extended ; if his aim is not sure, he permits the 
animal to grasp the barrel, and as he carries it to his mouth 
(which is his habit) he fires. Should the gun fail to go off, the 
barrel (that of the ordinary musket, which is thin) is crushed 
between his teeth, and the encounter soon proves fatal to the 
hunter. 

" In the wild state, their habits are in general like those of 
the Troglodytes niger, building their nests loosely in trees, 
living on similar fruits, and changing their place of resort from 
force of circumstances." 

Dr. Savage's observations were confirmed and 
supplemented by those of Mr. Ford, who communi- 
cated an interesting paper on the Gorilla to the 
Philadelphian Academy of Sciences, in 1852. 
With respect to the geographical distribution of 



68 THE MAN-LIKE APES i 

this greatest of all the man-like Apes, Mr. Ford 
remarks : 

"This animal inhabits the range of mountains that traverse 
the interior of Guinea, from the Cameroon in the north, to 
Angola in the south, and about 100 miles inland, and called by 
the geographers Crystal Mountains. The limit to which this 
animal extends, either north or south, I am unable to define. 
But that limit is doubtless some distance north of this river 
[Gaboon]. I was able to certify myself of this fact in a late 
excursion to the head-waters of the Mooney (Danger) River, 
which comes into the sea some sixty miles from this place. I 
was informed (credibly, I think) that they were numerous 
among the mountains in which that river rises, and far north of 
that. 

" In the south, this species extends to the Congo River, as I am 
told by native traders who have visited the coast between the 
Gaboon and that river. Beyond that, I am not informed. This 
animal is only found at a distance from the coast in most cases, 
and, according to my best information, approaches it nowhere so 
nearly as on the south side of this river, where they have been 
found within ten miles of the sea. This, however, is only of 
late occurrence. I am informed by some of the oldest Mpongwe 
men that formerly he was only found on the sources of the river, 
but that at present he may be found within half-a-day's walk of 
its mouth. Formerly he inhabited the mountainous ridge where 
Bushmen alone inhabited, but now he boldly approaches the 
Mpongwe plantations. This is doubtless the reason of the 
scarcity of information in years past, as the opportunities for 
receiving a knowledge of the animal have not been wanting ; 
traders having for one hundred years frequented this river, and 
specimens, such as have been brought here within a year, could 
not have been exhibited without having attracted the attention 
of the most stupid." 

One specimen Mr. Ford examined weighed 
l701bs., without the thoracic, or pelvic, viscera, 



I THE GORILLA 69 

and measured four feet four inches round the 
chest. This writer describes so minutely and 
graphically the onslaught of the Gorilla — though 
he does not for a moment pretend to have wit- 
nessed the scene — that I am tempted to give this 
part of his paper in full, for comparison with other 
narratives : 



' ' He always rises to his feet when making an attack, though 
he approaches his antagonist in a stooping posture. 

1 ' Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears, sees, or 
scents a man, he immediately utters his characteristic cry, pre- 
pares for an attack, and always acts on the offensive. The cry 
he utters resembles a grunt more than a growl, and is similar to 
the cry of the Chimpanzee, when irritated, but vastly louder. It 
is said to be audible at a great distance. His preparation 
consists in attending the females and young ones, by whom he 
is usually accompanied, to a little distance. He, however, soon 
returns, with his crest erect and projecting forward, his nostrils 
dilated, and his under-lip thrown down, at the same time 
uttering his characteristic yell, designed, it would seem, to 
terrify his antagonist. Instantly, unless he is disabled by a 
well-directed shot, he makes an onset, and, striking his antago- 
nist with the palm of his hands, or seizing him with a grasp 
from which there is no escape, he dashes him upon the ground, 
and lacerates him with his tusks. 

"He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush the barrel 

between his teeth This animal's savage nature 

is very well shown by the implacable desperation of a young 
one that was brought here. It was taken very young, and kept 
four months, and many means were used to tame it ; but it was 
incorrigible, so that it bit me an hour before it died. " 

Mr. Ford discredits the house-building and 
elephant-driving stories, and says that no well- 



70 THE MAN-LIKE APES 1 

informed natives believe them. They are tales 
told to children. 

I might quote other testimony to a similar 
effect, but, as it appears to me, less carefully 
weighed and sifted, from the letters of MM. 
Franquet and Gautier Laboullay, appended to 
the memoir of M. I. G. St. Hilaire, which I have 
already cited. 

Bearing in mind what is known regarding the 
Orang and the Gibbon, the statements of Dr. 
Savage and Mr. Ford do not appear to me to be 
justly open to criticism on a priori grounds. The 
Gibbons, as we have seen, readily assume the 
erect posture, but the Gorilla is far better fitted by 
its organization for that attitude than are the 
Gibbons : if the laryngearpoiiches of the Gibbons, 
as is very likely, are important in giving volume 
to a voice which can be heard for half a league, 
the Gorilla, which has similar sacs, more largely 
developed, and whose bulk is fivefold that of a, 
Gibbon, may well be audible for twice that dis- 
tance. If the Orang fights with its hands, the 
Gibbons and Chimpanzees with their teeth, the 
Gorilla may, probably enough, do either or both ; 
nor is there anything to be said against either 
Chimpanzee or Gorilla building a nest, when it is 
proved that the Orang-Utan habitually performs 
that feat. 

With all this evidence, now ten to fifteen years 
old, before the world, it is not a little surprising 



I THE GOEILLA 71 

that the assertions of a recent traveller, who, so far 
as the Gorilla is concerned, really does very little 
more than repeat, on his own authority, the state- 
ments of Savage and of Ford, should have met, 
with so much and such bitter opposition. If sub- 
traction be made of what was known before, the: 
sum and substance of what M. Du Chailiu has; 
affirmed as a matter of his own observation 
respecting the Gorilla, is, that, in advancing to the 
attack, the great brute beats his chest with his 
fists. I confess I see nothing very improbable, 
or very much worth disputing about, in this state- 
ment. 

With respect to the other man-like Apes of 
Africa, M. Du Chailiu tells us absolutely nothing, 
of his own knowledge, regarding the common 
Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed 
species or variety, the nschiego mbouve, which 
builds itself a shelter, and of another rare kind 
with a comparatively small face, large facial angle, 
and peculiar note, resembling " Kooloo." 

As the Orang shelters itself with a rough 
coverlet of leaves, and the common Chimpanzee, 
according to that eminently trustworthy observer 
Dr. Savage, makes a sound like " Whoo-whoo," — 
the grounds of the summary repudiation with 
which M. Du Chaillu's statements on these matters 
have been met are not obvious. 

If I have abstained from quoting M. Du Chaillu's 
work, then, it is not because I discern any in- 



72 THE MAN-LIKE APES ] 

herent improbability in his assertions respecting 
the man-like Apes ; nor from any wish to throw 
suspicion on his veracity ; but because, in my 
opinion, so long as his narrative remains in its 
present state of unexplained and apparently 
inexplicable confusion, it has no claim to original 
authority respecting any subject whatsoever. 
It may be truth, but it is not evidence. 



African Cannibalism in the Sixteenth Century. 

In turning over Pigafetta's version of the narrative of Lopez, 
which I have quoted above, I came upon so curious and unex- 
pected an anticipation, by some two centuries and a half, of one 
of the most startling parts of M. Du Chaillu's narrative, that I 
cannot refrain from drawing attention to it in a note, although 
I must confess that the subject is not strictly relevant to the 
matter in hand. 

In the fifth chapter of the first book of the ' ' Descriptio, " 
" Concerning the northern part of the Kingdom of Congo and 
its boundaries," is mentioned a people whose king is called 
" Maniloango," and who live under the equator, and as far 
westward as Cape Lopez. This appears to be the country now 
inhabited by the Ogobai and Bakalai according to M. Du 
Chaillu. — "Beyond these dwell another people called 'Anzi- 
ques/ of incredible ferocity, for they eat one another, sparing 
neither friends nor relations." 

These people are armed with small bows bound tightly round 
with snake skins, and strung with a reed or rush. Their arrows, 
short and slender, but made of hard wood, are shot with great 
rapidity. They have iron axes, the handles of which are bound 
round with snake skins, and swords with scabbards of the same 
material ; for defensive armour they employ elephant hides. 
They cut their skins when young, so as to produce scars. " Their 
butchers' shops are filled with human flesh instead of that of 
oxen or sheep. For they eat the enemies whom they take in 
battle. They fatten, slay and devour their slaves also, unless 



74 



AFRICAN CANNIBALISM 




Fig. 12.— Butcher's Shop of the Anziques Anno 1598. 



they think they shall get a good price for them ; and, moreover, > 
sometimes for weariness of life or desire of glory (for they think ! 



I AFRICAN CANNIBALISM 10 

it a great thing and the sign of a generous soul to despise life), 
or for love of their rulers, offer themselves up for food." 

"There are indeed many cannibals, as in the Eastern Indies 
and in Brazil and elsewhere, but none such as these, since the 
others only eat their enemies, but these their own blood 
relations." 

The careful illustrators of Pigafetta have done their best to 
enable the reader to realize this account of the " Anziques," 
and the unexampled butcher's shop represented in Fig. 12, is a 
facsimile of part of their Plate XII. 

M. Du Chaillu's account of the Fans accords most singularly 
with what Lopez here narrates of the Anziques. He speaks of 
their small crossbows and little arrows, of their axes and knives, 
" ingeniously sheathed in snake skins." "They tattoo them- 
selves more than any other tribes I have met north of the 
equator." And all the world knows what M. Du Chaillu says 
of their cannibalism — "Presently we passed a woman who 
solved all doubt. She bore with her a piece of the thigh of a 
human body, just as we should go to market and carry thence a 
roast or steak." M. Du Chaillu's artist cannot generally be 
accused of any want of courage in embodying the statements of 
his author, and it is to be regretted that, with so good an ex- 
cuse, he has not furnished us with a fitting companion to the 
sketch of the brothers De Biy. 



II 



ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE 
LOWER ANIMALS 

Multis videri poterit, majorem esse differentiam Simise et 
Hominis, quam diei et noctis ; veram tamen hi, comparatione 
instituta inter summos Europae Heroes et Hottentottes ad 
Caput bonae spei degentes, difficillime sibi persuadebunt, has 
eosdem habere natales ; vel si virginem nobilem aulieam, 
maxime comtam et humanissimam, conferre vellent cum 
ho mine sylvestri et sibi relicto, vix augurari possent, hunc et 
il]am ejusdem esse speciei. — Linncei Amcenitates Acad. 
* ' Anthropomorpha. " 

The question of questions for mankind — the 
problem which underlies all others, and is more 
deeply interesting than any other — is the ascer- 
tainment of the place which Man occupies in 
nature and of his relations to the universe of 
things. Whence our race has come ; what are 
the limits of our power over nature, and of 
nature's power over us ; to what goal we are 
tending; are the problems which present them- 
selves anew and with undiminished interest to 



78 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

every man born into the world. Most of us, 
shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which 
beset the seeker after original answers to these 
riddles, are contented to ignore them altogether, 
or to smother the investigating spirit under the 
feather-bed of respected and respectable tradition. 
But, in every age, one or two restless spirits, 
blessed with that constructive genius, which can 
only build on a secure foundation, or cursed with 
the spirit of mere scepticism, are unable to follow 
in the well-worn and comfortable track of their 
forefathers and contemporaries, and unmindful of 
thorns and stumbling-blocks, strike out into paths 
of their own. The sceptics end in the infidelity 
which asserts the problem to be insoluble, or in 
the atheism which denies the existence of any 
orderly progress and governance of things : the 
men of genius propound solutions which grow 
into systems of Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled 
in musical language which suggests more than it 
asserts, take the shape of the Poetry of an epoch. 
Each such answer to the great question, in- 
variably asserted by the followers of its pro- 
pounder, if not by himself, to be complete and 
final, remains in high authority and esteem, it 
may be for one century, or it may be for twenty : 
but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have 
been a mere approximation to the truth — tolerable 
chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by 
whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable 



II 



MENTAL ECDYSES OF MAN 79 



when tested by the larger knowledge of their 
successors. 

In a well-worn metaphor, a parallel is drawn 
between the life of man and the metamorphosis 
of the caterpillar into the butterfly ; but the com- 
parison may be more just as well as more novel, if 
for its former term we take the mental progress 
of the race. History shows that the human mind, 
fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodi- 
cally grows too large for its theoretical coverings, 
and bursts them asunder to appear in new habili- 
ments, as the feeding and growing grub, at 
intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes 
another, itself but temporary. Truly the imago 
state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but 
every moult is a step gained, and of such there 
have been many. 

Since the revival of learning, whereby the 
Western races of Europe were enabled to enter 
upon that progress towards true knowledge, which 
was commenced by the philosophers of Greece, 
but was almost arrested in subsequent long ages 
of intellectual stagnation, or, at most, gyration, 
the human larva has been feeding vigorously, and 
moulting in proportion. A skin of some dimension 
was cast in the 16th century, and another towards 
the end of the 18th, while, wdthin the last fifty 
years, the extraordinary growth of every depart- 
ment of physical science has spread among us 
mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a 



80 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

character that a new ecdysis seems imminent. 
But this is a process not unusually accompanied 
by many throes and some sickness and debility, 
or, it may be, by graver disturbances; so that 
every good citizen must feel bound to facilitate 
the process, and even if he have nothing but a 
scalpel to work withal, to ease the cracking in- 
tegument to the best of his ability. 

In this duty lies my excuse for the publication 
of these essays. For it will be admitted that some 
knowledge of man's position in the animate world 
is an indispensable preliminary to the proper 
■understanding of his relations to the universe; 
and this again resolves itself, in the long run, 
into an inquiry into the nature and the closeness 
of the ties which connect him with those singular 
creatures whose history 1 has been sketched in the 
preceding pages. 

The importance of such an inquiry is indeed 
intuitively manifest. Brought face to face with 
these blurred copies of himself, the least thought- 
ful of men is conscious of a certain shock, due 
perhaps, not so much to disgust at the aspect of 
what looks like an insulting caricature, as to the 
awakening of a sudden and profound mistrust of 
time-honoured theories and strongly-rooted pre- 
judices regarding his own position in nature, and 

1 It will be understood that, in the preceding Essay, I have 
selected for notice from the vast mass of papers which have 
been written upon the man-like Apes, only those which seem to 
me to be of special moment. 



II 



DEVELOPMENT 81 



his relations to the under- world of life ; while 
that which remains a dim suspicion for the 
unthinking, becomes a vast argument, fraught 
with the deepest consequences, for all who are 
acquainted with the recent progress of the ana- 
tomical and physiological sciences. 

I now propose briefly to unfold that argument, 
and to set forth, in a form intelligible to those 
who possess no special acquaintance with ana- 
tomical science, the chief facts upon which all con- 
clusions respecting the nature and the extent of 
the bonds which connect man with the brute 
world must be based : I shall then indicate the 
one immediate conclusion which, in my judgment, 
is justified by those facts, and I shall finally 
discuss the bearing of that conclusion upon 
the hypotheses which have been entertained re- 
specting the Origin of Man. 

The facts to which I would first direct the 
readers attention, though ignored by many of the 
professed instructors of the public mind, are easy 
of demonstration and are universally agreed to by 
men of science; while their significance is so 
great, that whoso has duly pondered over them 
will, I think, find little to startle him in the 
other revelations of Biology. I refer to those 
facts which have been made known by the study 
of Development. 

It is a truth of very wide, if not of universal, 

170 



82 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

application, that every living creature commences 
its existence under a form different from, and 
simpler than, that which it eventually attains. 

The oak is a more complex thing than the 
little rudimentary plant contained in the acorn ; 
the caterpillar is more complex than the egg; 
the butterfly than the caterpillar ; and each of 
these beings, in passing from its rudimentary to 
its perfect condition, runs through a series of 
changes, the sum of which is called its Develop- 
ment. In the higher animals these changes are 
extremely complicated ; but, within the last half 
century, the labours of such men as Von Baer, 
Rathke, Reichert, Bischoff, and Remak, have 
almost completely unravelled them, so that the 
successive stages of development which are ex- 
hibited by a Dog, for example, are now as well 
known to the embryologist as are the steps of the 
metamorphosis of the silk-worm moth to the 
school-boy. It will be useful to consider with 
attention the nature and the order of the stages 
of canine development, as an example of the 
process in the higher animals generally. 

The dog, like all animals, save the very lowest 
(and further inquiries may not improbably remove 
the apparent exception), commences its existence 
as an egg : as a body which is, in every sense, as 
much an egg as that of a hen, but is devoid 
of that accumulation of nutritive matter which 
confers upon the bird's egg its exceptional size and 



II 



THE DOGS EGG 



83 



domestic utility; and wants the shell, which 
would not on]y be useless to an animal incubated 
within the body of its parent, but would cut it off 
from access to the source of that nutriment which 
the young creature requires, but which the minute 
egg of the mammal does not contain within 
itself. 




Fig. 13. — A. Egg of the Dog, with the vitelline mem- 
brane burst, so as to give exit to the yelk, the germinal vesicle 
(a), and its included spot (b). B. C. D. E. F. Successive 
changes of the yelk indicated in the text. After Bisehoff. 



The Dog's egg is, in fact, a little spheroidal bag 
(Fig. 13), formed of a delicate transparent mem- 
brane called the vitelline membrane, and about T -g- tn 
to T ^o-th of an inch in diameter. It contains a 



84 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

mass of viscid nutritive matter — the yelk — within 
which is enclosed a second much more delicate 
spheroidal bag, called the germinal vesicle (a). 
In this, lastly, lies a more solid rounded body, 
termed the germinal spot (b). 

The egg, or Ovum is originally formed within 
a gland, from which, in due season, it becomes 
detached, and passes into the living chamber fitted 
for its protection and maintenance during the 
protracted process of gestation. Here, when 
subjected to the required conditions, this minute 
and apparently insignificant particle of living 
matter becomes animated by a new and mysteri- 
ous activity. The germinal vesicle and spot cease 
to be discernible (their precise fate being one of 
the yet unsolved problems of embryology), but 
the yelk becomes circumferentially indented, as if 
an invisible knife had been drawn round it, and 
thus appears divided into two hemispheres (Fig. 
13, C). 

By the repetition of this process in various 
planes, these hemispheres become subdivided, so 
that four segments are produced (D) ; and these, 
in like manner, divide and subdivide again, until 
the whole yelk is converted into a mass of 
granules, each of which consists of a minute 
spheroid of yelk-substance, inclosing a central 
particle, the so-called nucleus (F). Nature, by 
this process, has attained much the same result 
as that which a human artificer arrives at by his 



II 



THE CELLULAR EMBRYO 85 



operations in a brick-field. She takes the rough 
plastic material of the yelk and breaks it up into 
well-shaped tolerably even-sized masses — handy 
for building up into any part of the living 
edifice. 

Next, the mass of organic bricks, or cells as 
they are technically called, thus formed, acquires 
an orderly arrangement, becoming converted into 
a hollow spheroid with double walls. Then, upon 
one side of this spheroid, appears a thickening, and, 
by and bye, in the centre of the area of thickening, 
a straight shallow groove (Fig. 14, A) marks the 
central line of the edifice which is to be raised, or, 
in other words, indicates the position of the middle 
line of the body of the future dog. The substance 
bounding the groove on each side next rises up 
into a fold, the rudiment of the side wall of that 
long cavity, which will eventually lodge the spinal 
marrow and the brain ; and in the floor of this 
chamber appears a solid cellular cord, the so-called 
notochord. One end of the enclosed cavity 
dilates to form the head (Fig. 14, B), the other 
remains narrow, and eventually becomes the tail ; 
the side walls of the body are fashioned out of the 
downward continuation of the walls of the groove ; 
and from them, by and bye, grow out little buds 
which, by degrees, assume the shape of limbs. 
Watching the fashioning process stage by stage, 
one is forcibly reminded of the modeller in clay. 
Every part, every organ, is at first, as it were 



86 



MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS 



II 



pinched up rudely, and sketched out in the rough ; 
then shaped more accurately ; and only, at last, 
receives the touches which stamp its final 
character. 

Thus, at length, the young puppy assumes such 




Fig. 14. — A. Earliest rudiment of the Dog. B. Rudiment 
further advanced, showing the foundations of the head, tail, 
and vertebral column. C. The very young puppy, with 
attached ends of the yelk-sac and allantois, and invested 
in the amnion. 



a form as is shown in Fig. 14, C. In this con- 
dition it has a disproportionately large head, as 
dissimilar to that of a dog as the bud-like limbs 



are unlike his legs, 



IX 



FCETAL APPENDAGES 87 



The remains of the yelk, which have not yet 
been applied to the nutrition and growth of the 
young animal, are contained in a sac attached to 
the rudimentary intestine, and termed the yelk 
sac, or umbilical vesicle. Two membranous 
bags, intended to subserve respectively the pro- 
tection and nutrition of the young creature, have 
been developed from the skin and from the under 
and hinder surface of the body ; the former, the 
so-called amnion, is a sac filled with fluid, 
which invests the whole body of the embryo, and 
plays the part of a sort of water-bed for it ; the 
other, termed the allantois, grows out, loaded 
with blood-vessels, from the ventral region, and 
eventually applying itself to the walls of the 
cavity, in which the developing organism is con- 
tained, enables these vessels to become the channel 
by which the stream of nutriment, required to 
supply the wants of the offspring, is furnished to 
it by the parent. 

The structure which is developed by the inter- 
lacement of the vessels of the offspring with those 
of the parent, and by means of which the former 
is enabled to receive nourishment and to get rid 
of effete matters, is termed the Placenta. 

It would be tedious, and it is unnecessary for 
my present purpose, to trace the process of 
development further ; suffice it to say, that, by a 
long and gradual series of changes, the rudiment 
here depicted and described, becomes a puppy, ia 



88 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

born, and then, by still slower and less perceptible 
steps, passes into the adult Dog. 

There is not much apparent resemblance 
between a barn-door Fowl and the Dog who 
protects the farm-yard. Nevertheless the student 
of development finds, not only that the chick 
commences its existence as an egg, primarily 
identical, in all essential respects, with that of 
the Dog, but that the yelk of this egg undergoes 
division — that the primitive groove arises, and 
that the contiguous parts of the germ are 
fashioned, by precisely similar methods, into a 
young chick, which, at one stage of its existence, 
is so like the nascent Dog, that ordinary inspection 
would hardly distinguish the two. 

The history of the development of any other 
vertebrate animal, Lizard, Snake, Frog, or Fish, tells 
the same story. There is always, to begin with, an 
egg having the same essential structure as that 
of the Dog : — the yelk of that egg always under- 
goes division, or segmentation as it is often 
called : the ultimate products of that segmentation 
constitute the building materials for the body of 
the young animal ; and this is built up round a 
primitive groove, in the floor of which a notochord 
is developed. Furthermore, there is a period in 
which the young of all these animals resemble 
one another, not merely in outward form, but in 
all essentials of structure, so closely, that the 



II 



DEVELOPMENT OF MAN 89 



differences between them are inconsiderable, while, 
in their subsequent course they diverge more and 
more widely from one another. And it is a general 
law, that, the more closely any animals resemble 
one another in adult structure, the longer and the 
more intimately do their embryos resemble one 
another : so that, for example, the embryos of a 
Snake and of a Lizard remain like one another 
longer than do those of a Snake and of a Bird ; 
and the embryo of a Dog and of a Cat remain like 
one another for a far longer period than do those 
of a Dog and a Bird ; or of a Dog and an Opossum ; 
or even than those of a Dog and a Monkey. 

Thus the study of development affords a clear 
test of closeness of structural affinity, and one 
turns with impatience to inquire what results are 
yielded by the study of the development of Man. 
Is he something apart ? Does he originate in a 
totally different way from Dog, Bird, Frog, and 
Fish, thus justifying those who assert him to have 
no place in nature and no real affinity with the 
lower world of animal life ? Or does he originate 
in a similar germ, pass through the same slow and 
gradually progressive modifications, depend on 
the same contrivances for protection and nutrition, 
and finally enter the world by the help of the same 
mechanism? The reply is not doubtful for a 
moment, and has not been doubtful any time these 
thirty years. Without question, the mode of origin 
and the early stages of the development of man are 



90 



MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS 



II 



identical with those of the animals immediately 
below him in the scale : — without a doubt, in these 
respects, he is far nearer the Apes, than the Apes 
are to the Dog. 

The Human ovum is about r^h of an inch in 
diameter, and might be described in the same 




Fig. 15. — A. Human ovum (after Kblliker). a. ger- 
minal vesicle, b. germinal spot. B. A very early condition 
of Man, with yelk-sac, allantois and amnion (original). C. A 
more advanced stage (after Kolliker), compare Fig. 14, C. 



terms as that of the Dog, so that I need only refei 
to the figure illustrative (15 A) of its structure. 
It leaves the organ in which it is formed in a simi- 
lar fashion and enters the organic chamber pre- 
pared for its reception in the same way, the 
conditions of its development being in all respects 
the same. It has not yet been possible (and only 



II DEVELOPMENT OF MAN 91 

by some rare chance can it ever be possible) to 
study the human ovum in so early a developmental 
stage as that of yelk division, but there is every 
reason to conclude that the changes it undergoes 
are identical with those exhibited by the ova of 
other vertebrated animals ; for the formative 
materials of which the rudimentary human body 
is composed, in the earliest conditions in which it 
has been observed, are the same as those of other 
animals. Some of these earliest stages are figured 
below and, as will be seen, they are strictly com- 
parable to the very early states of the Dog ; the 
marvellous correspondence between the two which 
is kept up, even for some time, as development 
advances, becoming apparent by the simple com- 
parison of the figures with those on page 86. 

Indeed, it is very long before the body of the 
young human being can be readily discriminated 
from that of the young puppy ; but, at a tolerably 
early period, the two become distinguishable by 
the different form of their adjuncts, the yelk-sac 
and the allantois. The former, in the Dog, becomes 
long and spindle-shaped, while in Man it remains 
spherical : the latter, in the Dog, attains an 
extremely large size, and the vascular processes 
which are developed from it and eventually give 
rise to the formation of the placenta (taking root, 
as it were, in the parental organism, so as to draw 
nourishment therefrom, as the root of a tree 
extracts it from the soil) are arranged in an en- 



92 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

circling zone, while in Man, the allantois remains 
comparatively small, and its vascular rootlets are 
eventually restricted to one disk-like spot. Hence, 
while the placenta of the Dog is like a girdle, that 
of Man has the cake-like form, indicated by the 
name of the organ. 

But, exactly in those respects in which the 
developing Man differs from the Dog, he resembles 
the ape, which, like man, has a spheroidal yelk-sac 
and a discoidal, sometimes partially lobed, placenta. 
So that it is only quite in the later stages of 
development that the young human being presents 
marked differences from the young ape, while the 
latter departs as much from the dog in its devel- 
opment, as the man does. 

Startling as the last assertion may appear to be, 
it is demonstrably true, and it alone appears to 
me sufficient to place beyond all doubt the 
structural unity of man with the rest of the 
animal world, and more particularly and closely 
with the apes. 



Thus, identical in the physical processes by 
which he originates — identical in the early stages 
of his formation — identical in the mode of his 
nutrition before and after birth, with the animals 
which lie immediately below him in the scale — 
Man, if his adult and perfect structure be com- 
pared with theirs, exhibits, as might be expected, 



H THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN 93 

a marvellous likeness of organization. He re- 
sembles them as they resemble one another — he 
differs from them as they differ from one another. 
— And, though these differences and resemblances 
cannot be weighed and measured, their value may 
be readily estimated ; the scale or standard of 
judgment, touching that value being afforded and 
expressed by the system of classification of animals 
now current among zoologists. 

A careful study of the resemblances and differ- 
ences presented by animals has, in fact, led 
naturalists to arrange them into groups, or 
assemblages, all the members of each group 
presenting a certain amount of definable resem- 
blance, and the number of points of similarity 
being smaller as the group is larger and vice versd. 
Thus, all creatures which agree only in presenting 
the few distinctive marks of animality form the 
Kingdom Animalia. The numerous animals 
which agree only in possessing the special 
characters of Vertebrates form one Sub-kingdom 
of this Kingdom. Then the Sub-kingdom 
Vertebrata is subdivided into the five Classes, 
Fishes, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals, 
and these into smaller groups called Orders) 
these into Families and Genera) while the 
last are finally broken up into the smallest 
assemblages, which are distinguished by the 
possession of constant, not-sexual, characters. 
These ultimate groups are Species. 



94 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

Every year tends to bring about a greater 
uniformity of opinion throughout the zoological 
world as to the limits and characters of these 
groups, great and small. At present, for example, 
no one has the least doubt regarding the characters 
of the classes Mammalia, Aves, or Reptilia ; nor 
does the question arise whether any thoroughly 
well-known animal should be placed in one class 
or the other. Again, there is a very general 
agreement respecting the characters and limits of 
the orders of Mammals, and as to the animals 
which are structurally necessitated to take a place 
in one or another order. 

No one doubts, for example, that the Sloth and 
the Ant-eater, the Kangaroo and the Opossum, 
the Tiger and the Badger, the Tapir and the 
Rhinoceros, are respectively members of the same 
orders. These successive pairs of animals may, 
and some do, differ from one another immensely, 
in such matters as the proportions and structure 
of their limbs ; the number of their dorsal and 
lumbar vertebrae ; the adaptation of their frames 
to climbing, leaping, or running ; the number and 
form of their teeth ; and the characters of their 
skulls and of the contained brain. But, with all 
these differences, they are so closely connected in 
all the more important and fundamental characters 
of their organization, and so distinctly separated 
by these same characters from other animals, that 
zoologists find it necessary to group them together 



IT THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN 95 

as members of one order. And if any new animal 
were discovered, and were found to present no 
greater difference from the Kangaroo or from the 
Opossum, for example, than these animals do from 
one another, the zoologist would not only be 
logically compelled to rank it in the same order 
with these, but he w^ould not think of doing 
otherwise. 

Bearing this obvious course of zoological 
reasoning in mind, let us endeavour for a moment 
to disconnect our thinking selves from the mask 
of humanity; let us imagine ourselves scientific 
Saturnians, if you will, fairly acquainted with 
such animals as now inhabit the Earth, and em- 
ployed in discussing the relations they bear to a 
new and singular " erect and featherless biped," 
which some enterprising traveller, overcoming the 
difficulties of space and gravitation, has brought 
from that distant planet for our inspection, well 
preserved, may be, in a cask of rum. We should 
all, at once, agree upon placing him among the 
mammalian vertebrates ; and his lower jaw, his 
molars, and his brain, would leave no room for 
doubting the systematic position of the new genus 
among those mammals, whose young are nourished 
during gestation by means of a placenta, or what 
are called the " placental mammals." 

Further, the most superficial study would at 
once convince us that, among the orders of 
placental mammals, neither the Whales, nor the 



96 MAN AND THE LOWEK ANIMALS n 

hoofed creatures, nor the Sloths and Ant-eaters, 
nor the carnivorous Cats, Dogs, and Bears, still 
less the Rodent Rats and Rabbits, or the Insec- 
tivorous Moles and Hedgehogs, or the Bats*, could 
claim our Homo, as one of themselves. 

There would remain then, but one order for 
comparison, that of the Apes (using that word in 
its broadest sense), and the question for discussion 
would narrow itself to this — is Man so different 
from any of these Apes that he must form an 
order by himself? Or does he differ less from 
them than they differ from one another, and 
hence must take his place in the same order with 
them ? 

Being happily free from all real, or imaginary, 
personal interest in the results of the inquiry thus 
set afoot, we should proceed to weigh the argu- 
ments on one side and on the other, with as much 
judicial calmness as if the question related to a 
new Opossum. We should endeavour to ascer- 
tain, without seeking either to magnify or 
diminish them, all the characters by which our 
new Mammal differed from the Apes ; and if we 
found that these were of less structural value than 
those which distinguish certain members of the 
Ape order from others universally admitted to 
be of the same order, we should undoubtedly 
place the newly discovered tellurian genus with 
them. 

I now proceed to detail the facts which seem to 



[I 



CLASSIFICATION: GORILLA 91 



Hie to leave us no choice but to adopt the last- 
mentioned course. 

It is quite certain that the Ape which most 
nearly approaches man, in the, totality of its 
organisation, is either the Chimpanzee or the 
Gorilla ; and as it makes no practical difference, 
for the purposes of my present argument, which is 
selected for comparison, on the one hand, with Man, 
and on the other hand, with the rest of the 
Primates, 1 1 shall select the latter (so far as its 
organisation is known) — as a brute now so 
celebrated in prose and verse, that all must have 
heard of him, and have formed some conception 
of his appearance. I shall take up as many of the 
most important points of difference between man 
and this remarkable creature, as the space at my 
disposal will allow me to discuss, and the necessi- 
ties of the argument demand ; and I shall inquire 
into the value and magnitude of these differences, 
when placed side by side with those which 
separate the Gorilla from other animals of the 
same order. 

In the general proportions of the body and 
limbs there is a remarkable difference between 
the Gorilla and Man, which at once strikes the 



1 We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with the 
brain of the Gorilla, and therefore, in discussing cerebral 
characters, I shall take that of the Chimpanzee as my highest 
term among the Apes. 

Ill 



98 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

eye. The Gorilla's brain-case is smaller, its trunk 
larger, its lower limbs shorter, its upper limbs 
longer in proportion than those of Man. 

I find that the vertebral column of a full-grown 
Gorilla, in the Museum of the Eoyal College of 
Surgeons, measures 27 inches along its anterior 
curvature, from the upper edge of the atlas, or 
first vertebra of the neck, to the lower extremity 
of the sacrum ; that the arm, without the hand, is 
31 J inches long ; that the leg, without the foot, is 
26 \ inches long ; that the hand is 9| inches long ; 
the foot 11^ inches long. 

In other words, taking the length of the spinal 
column as 100, the arm equals 115, the leg 96, 
the hand 36, and the foot 41. 

In the skeleton of a male Bosjesman, in the 
same collection, the proportions, by the same 
measurement, to the spinal column, taken as 100, 
are — the arm 78, the leg 110, the hand 26, and 
the foot 32. In a woman of the same race the 
arm is 83, and the leg 120, the hand and foot 
remaining the same. In a European skeleton I 
find the arm to be 80, the leg 117, the hand 26, 
the foot 35. 

Thus the leg is not so different as it looks at 
first sight, in its proportion to the spine in the 
Gorilla and in the Man — being very slightly 
shorter than the spine in the former, and between 
y 1 ^ and \ longer than the spine in the latter. 
The foot is longer and the hand much longer in 



n GORILLA AND OTHER APES 99 

the Gorilla ; but the great difference is caused by 
the arms, which are very much longer than the 
spine in the Gorilla, very much shorter than the 
spine in the Man. 

The question now arises how are the other 
Apes related to the Gorilla in these respects — 
taking the length of the spine, measured in the 
same way, at 100. In an adult Chimpanzee, the 
arm is only 96, the leg 90, the hand 43, the foot 
39— so that the hand and the leg depart more 
from the human proportion and the arm less, while 
the foot is about the same as in the Gorilla. 

In the Orang, the arms are very much longer 
than in the Gorilla (122), while the legs are 
shorter (88) ; the foot is longer than the hand (52 
and 48), and both are much longer in proportion 
to the spine. 

In the other man-like Apes again, the Gibbons, 
these proportions are still further altered ; the 
length of the arms being to that of the spinal 
column as 19 to 11 ; while the legs are also a 
third longer than the spinal column, so as to be 
longer than in Man, instead of shorter. The hand 
is half as long as the spinal column, and the foot, 
shorter than the hand, is about T 5 T tli3 of the 
length of the spinal column. 

Thus Hylobates is as much longer in the arms 
than the Gorilla, as the Gorilla is longer in the 
arms than Man ; while, on the other hand, it is 
as much longer in the legs than the Man, as the 



100 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

Man is longer in the legs than the Gorilla, so that 
it contains within itself the extremest deviations 
from the average length of both pairs of limbs. 1 

The Mandrill presents a middle condition, the 
arms and legs being nearly equal in length, and 
both being shorter than the spinal column ; while 
hand and foot have nearly the same proportions 
to one another and to the spine, as in Man. 

In the Spider monkey (Aides) the leg is longer 
than the spine, and the arm than the leg; and, 
finally, in that remarkable Lemurine form, the 
Indri (Lichanotus) , the leg is about as long as the 
spinal column, while the arm is not more than \\ 
of its length ; the hand having rather less and the 
foot rather more, than one third the length of the 
spinal column. 

These examples might be greatly multiplied, 
but they suffice to show that, in whatever pro- 
portion of its limbs the Gorilla differs, from Man, 
the other Apes depart still more widely from the 
Gorilla and that, consequently, such differences of 
proportion can have no ordinal value. 

We may next consider the differences presented 
by the trunk, consisting of the vertebral column, 
or backbone, and the ribs and pelvis, or bony hip- 
basin, which are connected with it, in Man and in 
the Gorilla respectively. 

1 See the figures of the skeletons of four anthropoid apes and 
of man. drawn to scale, p. 76. 



II MAN AND GOEILLA 101 

In Man, in consequence partly of the disposition 
of the articular surfaces of the vertebrae, and 
largely of the elastic tension of some of the fibrous 
bands, or ligaments, which connect these vertebrae 
together, the spinal column, as a whole, has an 
elegant S-like curvature, being convex forwards 
in the neck, concave in the back, convex in the 
loins, or lumbar region, and concave again in the 
sacral region ; an arrangement which gives much 
elasticity to the whole backbone, and diminishes 
the jar communicated to the spine, and through 
it to the head, by locomotion in the erect 
position, 

Furthermore, under ordinary circumstances, 
Man has seven vertebrae in his neck, which are 
called cervical ; twelve succeed these, bearing ribs 
and forming the upper part of the back, whence 
they are termed dorsal ; five lie in the loins, 
bearing no distinct, or free, ribs, and are called 
htmbar ; five, united together into a great bone, 
excavated in front, solidly wedged in between the 
hip bones, to form the back of the pelvis, and 
known by the name of the sacrum, succeed these ; 
and finally, three or four little more or less 
movable bones, so small as to be insignificant, 
constitute the coccyx or rudimentary tail. 

In the Gorilla, the vertebral column is similarly 
divided into cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and 
coccygeal vertebrae, and the total number of 
cervical and dorsal vertebrae, taken together, is 



102 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

the same as in Man ; but the development of a 
pair of ribs to the first lumbar vertebra, which is 
an exceptional occurrence in Man, is the rule in 
the Gorilla ; and hence, as lumbar are distin- 
guished from dorsal vertebrae only by the presence 
or absence of free ribs, the seventeen "dorso- 
lumbar" vertebrae of the Gorilla are divided into 
thirteen dorsal and four lumbar, while in Man 
they are twelve dorsal and five lumbar. 

Not only, however, does Man occasionally 
possess thirteen pair of ribs/ but the Gorilla 
sometimes has fourteen pairs, while an Orang- 
utan skeleton in the Museum of the Royal 
College of Surgeons has twelve dorsal and five 
lumbar vertebrae, as in Man. Cuvier notes the 
same number in a Hylobates. On the other hand, 
among the lower Apes, many possess twelve 
dorsal and six or seven lumbar vertebrae ; the 
Douroucouli has fourteen dorsal and eight lum- 
bar,* and a Lemur (Stenops tardigradus) has fifteen 
dorsal and nine lumbar vertebrae. 

The vertebral column of the Gorilla, as a whole, 
differs from that of Man in the less marked char- 

1 "More than once," says Peter Camper, "have I met with 
more than six lumbar vertebrae in man. . . . Once I found 
thirteen ribs and four lumbar vertebrae." Fallopius noted thir- 
teen pair of ribs and only four lumbar vertebrae ; and Eustachius 
once found eleven dorsal vertebrae and six lumbar vertebrae. — 
(Euvres de Pierre Camper, T. 1, p. 42. As Tyson states, his 
" Pygmie " had thirteen pair of ribs and five lumbar vertebrae. 
The question of the curves of the spinal column in the Apes 
requires further investigation. 



II 



GORILLA AND OTHER APES 103 



acter of its curves, especially in the slighter 
convexity of the lumbar region. Nevertheless, 
the curves are present, and are quite obvious in 
young skeletons of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee 
which have been prepared without removal of the 
ligaments. In young Orangs similarly preserved 
on the other hand, the spinal column is either 
straight, or even concave forwards, throughout the 
lumbar region. 

Whether we take these characters then, or such 
minor ones as those which are derivable from 
the proportional length of the spines of the 
cervical vertebrae, and the like, there is no doubt 
whatsoever as to the marked difference between 
Man and the Gorilla; but there is as little, 
that equally marked differences, of the very same 
order, obtain between the Gorilla and the lower 
Apes. 

The Pelvis, or bony girdle of the hips, of Man 
is a strikingly human part of his organisation ; the 
expanded haunch bones affording support for his 
viscera during his habitually erect posture, and 
giving space for the attachment of the great 
muscles which enable him to assume and to pre- 
serve that attitude. In these respects the pelvis 
of the Gorilla differs very considerably from his 
(Fig. 16). But go no lower than the Gibbon, and 
see how vastly more he differs from the Gorilla 
than the latter does from Man, even in this struc- 
ture. Look at the flat, narrow haunch bones — the 




Gibbon. 



tfJn ^ 6 -- Fl ?nt and side views of the bony pelvis of Man, 
the Gorilla and Gibbon : reduced from drawings made from 
nature, of the same absolute length, by Mr. Waterhouse 



II 



GOEILLA AND MAN : SKULL 105 



long and narrow passage — the coarse, outwardly 
curved, ischiatic prominences on which the Gibbon 
habitually rests, and which are coated by the so- 
called " callosities," dense patches of skin, wholly 
absent in the Gorilla, in the Chimpanzee, and in 
the Orang, as in Man ! 

In the lower Monkeys and in the Lemurs the 
difference becomes more striking still, the pelvis 
acquiring an altogether quadrupedal character. 

But now let us turn to a nobler and more 
characteristic organ — that by which the human 
frame seems to be, and indeed is, so strongly dis- 
tinguished from all others, — I mean the skull. 
The differences between a Gorilla s skull and a 
Man's are truly immense (Fig. 17). In the former, 
the face, formed largely by the massive jaw-bones, 
predominates over the brain-case, or cranium 
proper : in the latter, the proportions of the two 
are reversed. In the Man, the occipital foramen, 
through which passes the great nervous cord con- 
necting the brain with the nerves of the body, is 
placed just behind the centre of the base of the 
skull, which thus becomes evenly balanced in the 
erect posture ; in the Gorilla, it lies in the posterior 
third of that base. In the Man, the surface 01 
the skull is comparatively smooth, and the supra- 
ciliary ridges or brow prominences usually project 
but little — while, in the Gorilla, vast crests are 
developed upon the skull, and the brow ridges over- 
hang the cavernous orbits, like great penthouses. 



106 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

Sections of the skulls, however, show that some 
of the apparent defects of the Gorilla's cranium 
arise, in fact, not so much from deficiency of brain- 
case as from excessive development of the parts of 
the face. The cranial cavity is not ill-shaped, and 
the forehead is not truly flattened or very retreat- 
ing, its really well-formed curve being simply dis- 
guised by the mass of bone which is built up 
against it (Fig. 17). 

But the roofs of the orbits rise more obliquely 
into the cranial cavity, thus diminishing the space 
for the lower part of the anterior lobes of the 
brain, and the absolute capacity of the cranium 
is far less than that of Man. So far as I am 
aware, no human cranium belonging to an adult 
man has yet been observed with a less cubical 
capacity than 62 cubic inches, the smallest 
cranium observed in any race of men by Morton, 
measuring 63 cubic inches ; while, on the other 
hand, the most capacious Gorilla skull yet 
measured has a content of not more than 34J 
cubic inches. Let us assume, for simplicity's 
sake, that the lowest Man's skull has twice the 
capacity of that of the highest Gorilla. 1 

1 It has been affirmed that Hindoo crania sometimes contain 
as little as 27 ounces of water, which would give a capacity 
ox about 46 cubic inches. The minimum capacity which I 
have assumed above, however, is based upon the valuable tables 
published by Professor R. Wagner in his Vorstvdien ssu einer 
wissenschaftlichen Morvhologie unci Physiologie des menschlichm 
Gehrins. As the result of the careful weighing of more than 
900 human brains, Professor Wagner states that one-half 



II 



CRANIAL CAPACITIES 107 



No doubt, this is a very striking difference, but 
it loses much of its apparent systematic value, 
when viewed by the light of certain other 
equally indubitable facts respecting cranial 
capacities. 

The first of these is, that the difference in the 
volume of the cranial cavity of different races of 
mankind is far greater, absolutely, than that 
between the lowest Man and the highest Ape, 
while, relatively, it is about the same. For the 
largest human skull measured by Morton con- 
tained 114 cubic inches, that m to say, had very 
nearly double the capacity of the smallest ; while 
its absolute preponderance, of 52 cubic inches — is 
far greater than that by which the lowest adult 

weighed between 1200 and 1400 grammes, and that about two- 
ninths, consisting for the most part of male brains, exceed 1400 
grammes. The lightest brain of an adult male, with sound 
mental faculties, recorded by Wagner, weighed 1020 grammes. 
As a gramme equals 15*4 grains, and a cubic inch of water con- 
tains 252 "4 grains, this is equivalent to 62 cubic inches of 
water ; so that as brain is heavier than water, we are perfectly 
safe against erring on the side of diminution in taking this as 
the smallest capacity of any adult male human brain. The only 
adult male brain, weighing as little as 970 grammes, is that of 
an idiot ; but the brain of an adult woman, against the sound- 
ness of whose faculties nothing appears, weighed as little as 907 
grammes (55 - 3 cubic inches of water) ; and Reid gives an adult 
female brain of still smaller capacity. The heaviest brain (1872 
grammes, or about 115 cubic inches) was, however, that of a 
woman ; next to it comes the brain of Cuvier (1861 grammes), 
then Byron (1807 grammes), and then an insane person (1783 
grammes). The lightest adult brain recorded (720 grammes) was 
that of an idiotic female. The brains of five children, four 
years old, weighed between 1275 and 992 grammes. So that it 
may be safely said, that an average European child of four 
years old has a brain twice as large as that of an adult Gorilla. 



108 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

male human cranium surpasses the largest of 
the Gorillas (62 — 34| = 27£). Secondly, the 
adult crania of Gorillas which have as yet been 
measured differ among themselves by nearly one- 
third, the maximum capacity being 345 cubic 
inches, the minimum 24 cubic inches ; and. thirdly, 
after making all due allowance for difference of 
size, the cranial capacities of some of the lower 
Apes fall nearly as much, relatively, below those 
of the higher Apes as the latter fall below Man. 

Thus, even in the important matter of cranial 
capacity, Men differ more widely from one an- 
other than they do from the Apes ; while the 
lowest Apes differ as much, in proportion, from the 
highest, as the latter does from Man. The last 
proposition is still better illustrated by the study 
of the modifications which other parts of the 
cranium undergo in the Simian series. 

It is the large proportional size of the facial 
bones and the great projection of the jaws which 
confers upon the Gorilla's skull its small facial 
angle and brutal character. 

But if we consider the proportional size of the 
facial bones to the skull proper only, the little 
Chrysothrix (Fig. 17) differs very widely from the 
Gorilla, and, in the same way, as Man does ; while 
the Baboons (Cynoccphahcs, Fig. 17) exaggerate 
the gross proportions of the muzzle of the great 
Anthropoid, so that its visage looks mild and 
human by comparison with theirs. The difference 



AUSTRALIAN, 



OHRTSOTHRIX 



GORILLA. 




CYJNTOCEPHALUS 



MYCETEiS. 



LEMUR. 



Fig. 17.— Sections of the skulls of Man and various Apes, 



110 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

drawn so as to give the cerebral cavity the same length in each 
case, thereby displaying the varying proportions of the facial 
bones. The line b indicates the plane of the tentorium, which 
separates the cerebrum from the cerebellum ; d, the axis of the 
occipital outlet of the skull. The extent of cerebral cavity 
behind c, which is a perpendicular erected on b at the point 
where the tentorium is attached posteriorly, indicates the degree 
to which the cerebrum overlaps the cerebellum — the space 
occupied by which is roughly indicated by the dark shading. 
In comparing these diagrams, it must be recollected, that 
figures on so small a scale as these simply exemplify the state- 
ments in the text, the proof of which is to be found in the 
objects themselves. 

between the Gorilla and the Baboon is even greater 
than it appears at first sight ; for the great facial 
mass of the former is largely due to a downward 
development of the jaws ; an essentially human 
character, superadded upon that almost purely 
forward, essentially brutal, development of the 
same parts which characterises the Baboon, and 
yet more remarkably distinguishes the Lemur. 

Similarly, the occipital foramen of Mycetes (Fig. 
17), and still more of the Lemurs, is situated com- 
pletely in the posterior face of the skull, or as 
much further back than that of the Gorilla, as that 
of the Gorilla is further back than that of Man ; 
while, as if to render patent the futility of the 
attempt to base any broad classificatory distinction 
on such a character, the same group of Platyrhine, 
or American monkeys, to which the Mycetes belongs, 
contains the Ghrysothrix, whose occipital foramen 
is situated far more forward than in any other ape, 
and nearly approaches the position it holds in 
Man. 



[I TEETH : MEN AND APES 111 

Again, the Orang's skull is as devoid of excess- 
ively developed supraciliary prominences as a 
Man's, though some varieties exhibit great crests 
elsewhere (See p. 25) ; and in some of the Cebine 
apes and in the Chrysothrix, the cranium is as 
smooth and rounded as that of Man himself, 

What is true of these leading characteristics of 
the skull, holds good, as may be imagined, of all 
minor features ; so that for every constant differ- 
ence between the Gorillas skull and the Man's, a 
similar constant difference of the same order (that 
is to say, consisting in excess or defect of the same 
quality) may be found between the Gorilla's skull 
and that of some other ape. So that, for the skull, 
no less than for the skeleton in general, the propo- 
sition holds good, that the differences between Man 
and the Gorilla are of smaller value than those 
between the Gorilla and some other Apes. 

In connection with the skull, I may speak of the 
teeth — organs which have a peculiar classificatory 
value, and whose resemblances and differences of 
number, form, and succession, taken as a whole, are 
usually regarded as more trustworthy indicators of 
affinity than any others. 

Man is provided with two sets of teeth — milk 
teeth and permanent teeth. The former consist of 
four incisors, or cutting teeth ; two canines, or eye- 
teeth ; and four molars or grinders, in each jaw, 
making twenty in all. The latter (Fig. 18) com- 



112 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

prise four incisors, two canines, four small grinders, 
called premolars or false molars, and six large 
grinders, or true molars ineach jaw — making thirty- 
two in all. The internal incisors are larger than 
the external pair, in the upper jaw, smaller than 
the external pair, in the lower jaw. The crowns of 
the upper molars exhibit four cusps, or blunt- 
pointed elevations, and a ridge crosses the crown 
obliquely, from the inner, anterior cusp to the 
outer, posterior cusp (Fig. 18 m 2 ). The anterior 
lower molars have five cusps, three external and 
two internal. The premolars have two cusps, one 
internal and one external, of which the outer is the 
higher. 

In all these respects the dentition of the Gorilla 
may be described in the same terms as that of Man ; 
but in other matters it exhibits many and import- 
ant differences (Fig. 18). 

Thus the teeth of man constitute a regular and 
even series — without any break and without any 
marked projection of one tooth above the level of 
the rest ; a peculiarity which, as Cuvier long ago 
showed, is shared by no other mammal save one — 
as different a creature from man as can well be 
imagined — namely, the long extinct Aywplotherium, 
The teeth of the Gorilla, on the contrary, exhibit 
a break, or interval, termed the diastema, in both 
jaws : in front of the eye-tooth, or between it and 
the outer incisor, in the upper jaw ; behind the eye- 
tooth, or between it and the front false molar, in the 



Man 



Gcri Ucl 






7K 2 




X2 



Ttt 



Cfieiromyi 



Fig. 18. — Lateral views, of the same length, of the upper 
jaws of various Primates, i, incisors ; c, canines ; pin, pre- 

172 



114 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

molars ; m, molars. A line is drawn through the first molar of 
Man, Gorilla, Cynocephalus, and Cebus, and the grinding 
surface of the second molar is shown in each, its anterior and 
internal angle being just above the m of m 2 . 



lower jaw. Into this break in the series, in each 
jaw, fits the canine of the opposite jaw ; the size of 
the eye-tooth in the Gorilla being so great that it 
projects, like a tusk, far beyond the general level 
of the other teeth. The roots of the false molar 
teeth of the Gorilla, again, are more complex 
than in Man, and the proportional size of the 
molars is different. The Gorilla has the crown 
of the hindmost grinder of the lower jaw more 
complex, and the order of eruption of the per- 
manent teeth is different ; the permanent canines 
making their appearance before the second and 
third molars in Man, and after them in the Gorilla. 

Thus, while the teeth of the Gorilla closely 
resemble those of Man in number, kind, and in 
the general pattern of their crowns, they exhibit 
marked differences from those of Man in secondary 
respects, such as relative size, number of fangs, 
and order of appearance. 

But, if the teeth of the Gorilla be compared 
with those of an Ape, no further removed from it 
than a Cynocephalus, or Baboon, it will be found 
that differences and resemblances of the same 
order are easily observable ; but that many of the 
points in which the Gorilla resembles Man are 
those in which it differs from the Baboon ; while 



II MAN AND APES: TEETH 115 

various respects in which it differs from Man are 
exaggerated in the Cynocephalus. The number 
and the nature of the teeth remain the same in 
the Baboon as in the Gorilla and in Man. But 
the pattern of the Baboon's upper molars is quite 
different from that described above (Fig. 18), the 
canines are proportionally longer and more knife- 
like ; the anterior premolar in the lower jaw is 
specially modified ; the posterior molar of the 
lower jaw is still larger and more complex than in 
the Gorilla. 

Passing from the old-world Apes to those of the 
new world, w r e meet with a change of much 
greater importance than any of these. In such a 
genus as Cebus, for example (Fig. 18), it will be 
found that while in some secondary points, such 
as the projection of the canines and the diastema, 
the resemblance to the great ape is preserved ; in 
other and most important respects, the dentition 
is extremely different. Instead of 20 teeth in the 
milk set, there are 24 : instead of 82 teeth in the 
permanent set, there are 36, the false molars being 
increased from eight to twelve. And in form, the 
crowns of the molars are very unlike those of the 
Gorilla, and differ far more widely from the human 
pattern. 

The Marmosets, on the other hand, exhibit the 
same number of teeth as Man and the Gorilla ; 
but, notwithstanding this, their dentition is very 
different, for they have four more false molars, 



116 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

like the other American monkeys — but as they 
have four fewer true molars, the total remains the 
same. And passing from the American apes to 
the Lemurs, the dentition becomes still more 
completely and essentially different from that of 
the Gorilla. The incisors begin to vary both in 
number and in form. The molars acquire, more 
and more, a many-pointed, insectivorous character, 
and in one Genus, the Aye-Aye {Cheiromys), the 
canines disappear, and the teeth completely simu- 
late those of a Rodent (Fig. 18). 

Hence it is obvious that, greatly as the denti- 
tion of the highest Ape differs from that of Man, 
it differs far more widely from that of the lower 
and lowest Apes. 

Whatever part of the animal fabric — whatever 
series of muscles, whatever viscera might be 
selected for comparison — the result would be the 
same — the lower Apes and the Gorilla would 
differ more than the Gorilla and the Man. I can- 
not attempt in this place to follow out all these 
comparisons in detail, and indeed it is unnecessary 
I should do so. But certain real, or supposed, 
structural distinctions between man and the apes 
remain, upon which so much stress has been laid, 
that they require careful consideration, in order 
that the true value may be assigned to those 
which are real, and the emptiness of those which 
are fictitious may be exposed. I refer to the 



II MAN AND APES: HAND AND BRAIN 117 

characters of the hand, the foot, and the 
brain. 

Man has been defined as the only animal 
possessed of two hands terminating his fore limbs, 
and of two feet ending his hind limbs, while it has 
been said that all the apes possess four hands ; 
and he has been affirmed to differ fundamentally 
from all the apes in the characters of his brain, 
which alone, it has been strangely asserted and 
reasserted, exhibits the structures known to 
anatomists as the posterior lobe, the posterior 
cornu of the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus 
minor. 

That the former proposition should have gained 
general acceptance is not surprising — indeed, at 
first sight, appearances are much in its favour : 
but, as for the second, one can only admire the 
surpassing courage of its enunciator, seeing that 
it is an innovation which is not only opposed to 
generally and justly accepted doctrines, but which 
is directly negatived by the testimony of all 
original inquirers, who have specially investigated 
the matter : and that it neither has been, nor can 
be, supported by a single anatomical preparation. 
It would, in fact, be unworthy of serious refutation, 
except for the general and natural belief that 
deliberate and reiterated assertions must have 
some foundation. 

Before we can discuss the first point with 



118 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

advantage we must consider with some attention, 
and compare together, the structure of the human 
hand and that of the human foot, so that we may- 
have distinct and clear ideas of what constitutes a 
hand and what a foot. 

The external form of the human hand is familiar 
enough to every one. It consists of a stout wrist 
followed by a broad palm, formed of flesh, and 
tendons, and skin, binding together four bones, 
and dividing into four long and flexible digits, or 
fingers, each of which bears on the back of its 
last joint a broad and flattened nail. The longest 
cleft between any two digits is rather less than 
half as long as the hand. From the outer side of 
the base of the palm a stout digit goes off, having 
only two joints instead of three ; so short, that it 
only reaches to a little beyond the middle of the 
first joint of the finger next it ; and further re- 
markable by its great mobility, in consequence of 
which it can be directed outwards, almost at a 
right angle to the rest. This digit is called the 
"pollex" or thumb; and, like the others, it bears 
a flat nail upon the back of its terminal joint. In 
consequence of the proportions and mobility of 
the thumb, it is what is termed " opposable " ; in 
other words, its extremity can, with the greatest 
ease, be brought into contact with the extremities 
of any of the fingers ; a property upon which the 
possibility of our carrying into effect the concep- 
tions of the mind so largely depends. 



II MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT 119 

The external form of the foot differs widely 
from, that of the hand ; and yet, when closely 
compared, the two present some singular re- 
semblances. Thus the ankle corresponds in a 
manner with the wrist; the sole with the palm; 
the toes with the fingers ; the great toe with the 
thumb. But the toes, or digits of the foot, are 
far shorter in proportion than the digits of the 
hand, and are less moveable, the want of mobility 
being most striking in the great toe — which, again, 
is very much larger in proportion to the other 
toes than the thumb to the fingers. In consider- 
ing this point, however, it must not be forgotten 
that the civilized great toe, confined and cramped 
from childhood upwards, is seen to a great dis- 
advantage, and that in uncivilized and barefooted 
people it retains a great amount of mobility, and 
even some sort of opposability. The Chinese 
boatmen are said to be able to pull an oar ; the 
artisans of Bengal to weave, and the Carajas to 
steal fishhooks by its help ; though, after all, it 
must be recollected that the structure of its joints 
and the arrangement of its bones, necessarily 
render its prehensile action far less perfect than 
that of the thumb. 

But to gain a precise conception of the re- 
semblances and differences of the hand and foot, 
and of the distinctive characters of each, we must 
look below the skin, and compare the bony frame- 
work and its motor apparatus in each (Fig. 19). 




ILctnd. 



Feet 



Fig. 19.— The skeleton of the Hand and Foot of Man 
reduced from Dr. Carter's drawings in Gray's Anatomy. The 
hand is drawn to a larger scale than the foot. The line a a in 
the hand indicates the boundary between the carpus and the 
metacarpus ; b b that between the latter and the proximal 
phalanges ; e c marks the ends of the distal phalanges. The 
line a' a' in the foot indicates the boundary between the tarsus 
and metatarsus ; V b' marks that between the metatarsus and 
the proximal phalanges ; and d c' bounds the ends of the distal 
phalanges ; ca, the calcaneum ; as, the astragalus ; sc, the 
scaphoid bone in the tarsus. 



II MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT 121 

The skeleton of the hand exhibits, in the region 
which we term the wrist, and which is technically 
called the carpus — two rows of closely fitted 
polygonal bones, four in each row, which are 
tolerably equal in size. The bones of the first 
row with the bones of the forearm, form the wrist 
joint, and are arranged side by side, no one greatly 
exceeding or overlapping the rest. 

Three of the bones of the second row of the 
carpus bear the four long bones which support the 
palm of the hand. The fifth bone of the same 
character is articulated in a much more free and 
moveable manner than the others, with its carpal 
bone, and forms the base of the thumb. These 
are called metacarpal bones, and they carry the 
phalanges, or bones of the digits, of which there 
are two in the thumb, and three in each of the 
fingers. 

The skeleton of the foot is very like that of the 
hand in. some respects. Thus there are three 
phalanges in each of the lesser toes, and only two 
in the great toe, which answers to the thumb. 
There is a long bone, termed metatarsal, answering 
to the metacarpal, for each digit ; and the tarsus 
which corresponds with the carpus, presents four 
short polygonal bones in a row, which correspond 
very closely with the four carpal bones of the 
second row of the hand. In other respects the 
foot differs very widely from the hand. Thus the 
great toe is the longest digit but one; and its 



122 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS 



II 



metatarsal is far less moveably articulated with 
the tarsus than the metacarpal of the thumb with 
the carpus. But a far more important distinction 
lies in the fact that, instead of four more tarsal 
bones there are only three ; ' and, that these three 
are not arranged side by side, or in one row. One 
of them, the os colds or heel bone (ca), lies ex- 
ternally, and sends back the large projecting heel ; 
another, the astragalus (as), rests on this by one 
face, and by another, forms, with the bones of the 
leg, the ankle joint; while a third face, directed 
forwards, is separated from the three inner tarsal 
bones of the row next the metatarsus by a bone 
called the scaphoid (sc). 

Thus there is a fundamental difference in the 
structure of the foot and the hand, observable 
when the carpus and the tarsus are contrasted : 
and there are differences of degree noticeable when 
the proportions and the mobility of the meta- 
carpals and metatarsals, with their respective 
digits, are compared together. 

The same two classes of differences become 
obvious when the muscles of the hand are com- 
pared with those of the foot. 

Three principal sets of muscles, called " flexors/' 
bend the fingers and thumb, as in clenching the 
fist, and three sets, — the extensors — extend them, 
as in straightening the fingers. These muscles 
are all " long muscles " ; that is to say, the fleshy 
part of each, lying in and being fixed to the bones 



II MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT 123 

of the arm, is, at the other end, continued into 
tendons, or rounded cords, which pass into the 
hand, and are ultimately fixed to the bones which 
are to be moved. Thus, when the fingers are 
bent, the fleshy parts of the flexors of the fingers, 
placed in the arm, contract, in virtue of their 
peculiar endowment as muscles ; and pulling the 
tendinous cords, connecting with their ends, cause 
them to pull down the bones of the fingers towards 
the palm. 

Not only are the principal flexors of the fingers 
and of the thumb long muscles, but they remain 
quite distinct from one another throughout their 
whole length. 

In the foot, there are also three principal flexor 
muscles of the digits or toes, and three principal 
extensors ; but one extensor and one flexor are 
short muscles ; that is to say, their fleshy parts 
are not situated in the leg (which corresponds 
with the arm), but in the back and in the sole of 
the foot — regions which correspond with the back 
and the palm of the hand. 

Again, the tendons of the long flexor of the toes, 
and of the long flexor of the great toe, Avhen they 
reach the sole of the foot, do not remain distinct 
from one another, as the flexors in the palm of the 
hand do, but they become united and commingled 
in a very curious manner — while their united 
tendons receive an accessory muscle connected 
with the heel-bone. 



124 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

But perhaps the most absolutely distinctive 
character about the muscles of the foot is the ex- 
istence of what is termed the peronceus longus, a 
long muscle fixed to the outer bone of the leg, and 
sending its tendon to the outer ankle, behind and 
below which it passes, and then crosses the foot 
obliquely to be attached to the base of the great 
toe. No muscle in the hand exactly corresponds 
with this, which is eminently a foot muscle. 

To resume — the foot of man is distinguished 
from his hand by the following absolute anatomi- 
cal differences :— 

1. By the arrangement of the tarsal bones. 

2. By having a short flexor and a short ex- 

tensor muscle of the digits. 

3. By possessing the muscle termed peronams 

longus. 
And if we desire to ascertain whether the 
terminal division of a limb, in other Primates, is 
to be called a foot or a hand, it is by the presence 
or absence of these characters that we must be 
guided, and not by the mere proportions and 
greater or lesser mobility of the great toe, which 
may vary indefinitely without any fundamental 
alteration in the structure of the foot. 

Keeping these considerations in mind, let us 
now turn to the limbs of the Gorilla. The ter- 
minal division of the fore limb presents no diffi- 
culty — bone for bone and muscle for muscle, are 



n THE PREHENSILE FOOT 125 

found to be arranged essentially as in man, or 
with such minor differences as are found as 
varieties in man. The Gorilla's hand is clumsier, 
heavier, and has a thumb somewhat shorter in 
proportion than that of man ; but no one has ever 
doubted it being a true hand. 

At first sight, the termination of the hind limb 
of the Gorilla looks very hand-like, and as it is 
still more so in many of the lower apes, it is not 
wonderful that the appellation " Quadrumana," or 
four-handed creatures, adopted from the older 
anatomists 1 by Blumenbach, and unfortunately 
rendered current by Cuvier, should have gained 
such wide acceptance as a name for the Simian 
group. But the most cursory anatomical investi- 
gation at once proves that the resemblance of the 
so-called " hind hand " to a true hand, is only 
skin deep, and that, in all essential respects, the 
hind limb of the Gorilla is as truly terminated 

1 In speaking of the foot of his ' ' Pygmie, " Tyson remarks, 
p. 13:— 

" But this part in the formation and in its function too, 
being liker a Hand than a Foot : for the distinguishing this 
sort of animals from others, I have thought whether it might 
not be reckoned and called rather Quadru-manus than Quad- 
rupes, i.e. a four-handed rather than a four-footed animal." 

As this passage was published in 1699, M. I. G. St. Hilaireis 
clearly in error in ascribing the invention of the term ' ' quad- 
rumanous" to BufTon, though "bimanous" may belong to him. 

Tyson uses " Quadrumanus " in several places, as at p. 91 

" Our Pygmie is no Man, nor yet the common Ape, but a sort 
of Animal between both ; and though a Biped, yet of the 
Quadrumanus -kind : though some Men too have been observed 
to use their Feet like Hands as I have seen several." 



126 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

by a foot as that of man. The tarsal bones, in all 
important circumstances of number, disposition, 
and form, resemble those of man (Fig. 20). The 
metatarsals and digits, on the other hand, are 
proportionally longer and more slender, while 
the great toe is not only proportionally shorter 
and weaker, but its metatarsal bone is united by 
a more moveable joint with the tarsus. At the 
same time, the foot is set more obliquely upon the 
leg than in man. 

As to the muscles, there is a short flexor, a 
short extensor, and a peronceus longus, while the 
tendons of the long flexors of the great toe and of 
the other toes are united together and with an 
accessory fleshy bundle. 

The hind limb of the Gorilla, therefore, ends in 
a true foot, with a very moveable great toe. It is 
a prehensile foot, indeed, but is in no sense a 
hand ; it is a foot which differs from that of man 
not in any fundamental character, but in mere 
proportions, in the degree of mobility, and in the 
secondary arrangement of its parts. 

It must not be supposed, however, because I 
speak of these differences as not fundamental, that 
I wish to underrate their value. They are im- 
portant enough in their way, the structure of the 
foot being in strict correlation with that of the 
rest of the organism in each case. Nor can it be 
doubted that the greater division of physiological 
labour in Man, so that the function of support is 



II 



apes: hand and foot 127 



thrown wholly on the leg and foot, is an advance 
in organization of very great moment to him ; but, 
after all, regarded anatomically, the resemblances 
between the foot of Man and the foot of the 
Gorilla are far more striking and important than 
the differences. 

I have dwelt upon this point at length, because 
it is one regarding which much delusion prevails ; 
but I might have passed it over without detriment 
to my argument, which only requires me to show 
that, be the differences between the hand and foot 
of Man and those of the Gorilla what they may — the 
differences between those of the Gorilla, and those 
of the lower Apes are much greater. 

It is not necessary to descend lower in the scale 
than the Orang for conclusive evidence on this 
head. 

The thumb of the Orang differs more from that 
of the Gorilla than the thumb of the Gorilla differs 
from that of Man, not only by its shortness, but 
by the absence of any special long flexor muscle. 
The carpus of the Orang, like that of most lower 
apes, contains nine bones, while in the Gorilla, as 
in Man and the Chimpanzee, there are only 
eight. 

The Orang's foot (Fig. 20) is still more aber- 
rant ; its very long toes and short tarsus, short 
great toe, short and raised heel, great obliquity of 
articulation with the leg, and absence of a long 
flexor tendon to the great toe, separating it far 



128 



MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS 



II 



more widely from the foot of the Gorilla than the 
latter is separated from that of Man. 

But, in some of the lower apes, the hand and 



^r^B 




'M.CLU 



\§fr Orang 



Fig. 20. — Foot of Man, Gorilla, and Orang-Utan of the same 
absolute length, to show the differences in proportion of each. 
Letters as in Fig. 19. Reduced from original drawings by Mr. 
Waterhouse Hawkins. 



foot diverge still more from those of the Gorilla, 
than they do in the Orang. The thumb ceases to 
be opposable in the American monkeys ; is reduced 



II 



APES : HAND AND FOOT 129 



to a mere rudiment covered by the skin in the 
Spider Monkey; and is directed forwards and 
armed with a curved claw like the other digits, in 
the Marmosets — so that, in all these cases, there 
can be no doubt but that the hand is more differ- 
ent from that of the Gorilla than the Gorilla's 
hand is from Man's. 

And as to the foot, the great toe of the Marmo- 
set is still more insignificant in proportion than 
that of the Orang — while in the Lemurs it is very 
large, and as completely thumb-like and opposable 
as in the Gorilla — but in these animals the second 
toe is often irregularly modified, and in some 
species the two principal bones of the tarsus, the 
astragalus and the os calcis, are so immensely 
elongated as to render the foot, so far, totally un- 
like that of any other mammal. 

So with regard to the muscles. The short 
flexor of the toes of the Gorilla differs from that 
of Man by the circumstance that one slip of the 
muscle is attached, not to the heel bone, but to 
the tendons of the long flexors. The lower Apes 
depart from the Gorilla by an exaggeration of the 
same character, two, three, or more, slips becoming 
fixed to the long flexor tendons — or by a multipli- 
cation of the slips. — Again, the Gorilla differs 
slightly from Man in the mode of interlacing of the 
long flexor tendons : and the lower apes differ from 
the Gorilla in exhibiting yet other, sometimes 
very complex, arrangements of the same parts, and 
173 



130 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

occasionally in the absence of the accessory fleshy 
bundle. 

Throughout all these modifications it must be 
recollected that the foot loses no one of its essen- 
tial characters. Every Monkey and Lemur ex- 
hibits the characteristic arrangement of tarsal 
bones, possesses a short flexor and short extensor 
muscle, and a peronams longus. Varied as the 
proportions and appearance of the organ may be, 
the terminal division of the hind limb remains, 
in plan and principle of construction, a foot, and 
never, in those respects, can be confounded with a 
hand. 

Hardly any part of the bodily frame, then, could 
be found better calculated to illustrate the truth 
that the structural differences between Man and 
the highest Ape are of less value than those 
between the highest and the lower Apes, than the 
hand or the foot ; and yet, perhaps, there is one 
organ the study of which enforces the same con- 
clusion in a still more striking manner — and that 
is the Brain. 

But before entering upon the precise question 
of the amount of difference between the Ape's 
brain and that of Man, it is necessary that we 
should clearly understand what constitutes a 
great, and what a small difference in cerebral 
structure ; and we shall be best enabled to do this 
by a brief study of the chief modifications which the 
brain exhibits in the series of vertebrate animals. 



II 



VERTEBEATA: BRAINS 131 



The brain of a fish is very small, compared with 
the spinal cord into which it is continued, and 
with the nerves which come off from it : of the 
segments of which it is composed — the olfactory 
lobes, the cerebral hemispheres, and the succeed- 
ing divisions — no one predominates so much over 
the rest as to obscure or cover them; and the so- 
called optic lobes are, frequently, the largest 
masses of all. In Reptiles, the mass of the brain, 
relatively to the spinal cord, increases and the 
cerebral hemispheres begin to predominate over 
the other parts ; while in Birds this predominance 
is still more marked. The brain of the lowest 
Mammals, such as the duck-billed Platypus and 
the Opossums and Kangaroos, exhibits a still 
more definite advance in the same direction. The 
cerebral hemispheres have now so much increased 
in size as, more or less, to hide the representatives 
of the optic lobes, which remain comparatively 
small, so that the brain of a Marsupial is extremely 
different from that of a Bird, Reptile, or Fish. A 
step higher in the scale, among the placental 
Mammals, the structure of the brain acquires a 
vast modification — not that it appears much 
altered externally, in a Rat or in a Rabbit, from 
what it is in a Marsupial — nor that the proportions 
of its parts are much changed, but an apparently 
new structure is found between the cerebral 
hemispheres, connecting them together, as what is 
called the " great commissure " or " corpus 



132 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

callosum." The subject requires careful re-in- 
vestigation, but if the currently received state- 
ments are correct, the appearance of the " corpus 
callosum " in the placental mammals is the 
greatest and most sudden modification exhibited 
by the brain in the whole series of vertebrated 
animals — it is the greatest leap anywhere made 
by Nature in her brain work. For the two halves 
of the brain being once thus knit together, the 
progress of cerebral complexity is traceable through 
a complete series of steps from the lowest Rodent, 
or Insectivore, to Man ; and that complexity con- 
sists, chiefly, in the disproportionate development 
of the cerebral hemispheres and of the cerebellum, 
but especially of the former, in respect to the 
other parts of the brain. 

In the lower placental mammals, the cerebral 
hemispheres leave the proper upper and posterior 
face of the cerebellum completely visible, when 
the brain is viewed from above ; but/ in the higher 
forms, the hinder part of each hemisphere, sepa- 
rated only by the tentorium (p. 137) from the 
anterior face of the cerebellum, inclines backwards 
and downwards, and grows out, as the so-called 
" posterior lobe," so as at length to overlap and 
hide the cerebellum. In all Mammals, each 
cerebral hemisphere contains a cavity which is 
termed the " ventricle " ; and as this ventricle is 
prolonged, on the one hand, forwards, and on the 
other downwards, into the substance of the hemi- 



II 



MAMMALIA: BRAINS 133 



sphere, it is said to have two horns or " cornua," 
an "anterior cornu," and a "descending cornu/' 
When the posterior lobe is well developed, a third 
prolongation of the ventricular cavity extends into 
it, and is called the " posterior cornu/' 

In the lower and smaller forms of placental 
Mammals the surface of the cerebral hemispheres 
is either smooth or evenly rounded, or exhibits a 
very few grooves, which are technically termed 
" sulci/' separating ridges or " convolutions " of the 
substance of the brain ; and the smaller species of 
all orders tend to a similar smoothness of brain. 
But, in the higher orders, and especially the larger 
members of these orders, the grooves, or sulci, 
become extremely numerous, and the intermediate 
convolutions proportionately more complicated in 
their meanderings, until, in the Elephant, the 
Porpoise, the higher Apes, and Man, the cerebral 
surface appears a perfect labyrinth of tortuous 
foldings. 

Where a posterior lobe exists and presents its 
customary cavity — the posterior cornu — it com- 
monly happens that a particular sulcus appears 
upon the inner and under surface of the lobe, 
parallel with and beneath the floor of the cornu — 
which is, as it were, arched over the roof of the 
sulcus. It is as if the groove had been formed by 
indenting the floor of the posterior horn from with- 
out with a blunt instrument, so that the floor 
should rise as a convex eminence. Now this 



134 MAN AND TEE LOWER ANIMALS n 

eminence is what has been termed the " Hippo- 
campus minor ; " the " Hippocampus major " being 
a larger eminence in the floor of the descending 
cornu. What may be the functional importance 
of either of these structures we know not. 

As if to demonstrate, by a striking example, the 
impossibility of erecting any cerebral barrier be- 
tween man and the apes, Nature has provided us, 
in the latter animals, with an almost complete 
series of gradations from brains little higher than 
that of a Rodent, to brains little lower than that 
of Man. And it is a remarkable circumstance, 
that though, so far as our present knowledge 
extends, there is one true structural break in the 
series of forms of Simian brains, this hiatus does 
not lie between Man and the man -like apes, but 
between the lower and the lowest Simians ; or, in 
other words, between the old and new world apes 
and monkeys, and the Lemurs. Every Lemur 
which has yet been examined, in fact, has its cere- 
bellum partially visible from above, and its poste- 
rior lobe, with the contained posterior cornu and 
hippocampus minor, more or less rudimentary. 
Every Marmoset, American monkey, old world 
monkey, Baboon, or Man-like ape, on the contrary, 
has its cerebellum entirely hidden, posteriorly, 
by the cerebral lobes, and possesses a large pos- 
terior cornu, with a well-developed hippocampus 
minor. 



II 



THE POSTERIOR LOBES 135 



In many of these creatures, such as the Saimiri 
(Chrysothrix), the cerebral lobes overlap and 
extend much further behind the cerebellum, in 
proportion, than they do in man (Fig. 17) — and it 
is quite certain that, in all, the cerebellum is com- 
pletely covered behind, by well developed posterior 
lobes. The fact can be verified by every one who 
possesses the skull of any old or new world 
monkey. For, inasmuch as the brain in all mam- 
mals completely fills the cranial cavity, it is 
obvious that a cast of the interior of the skull 
will reproduce the general form of the brain, at any 
rate with such minute and, for the present purpose, 
utterly unimportant differences as may result from 
the absence of the enveloping membranes of the 
brain in the dry skull. But if such a cast be made 
in plaster, and compared with a similar cast of the 
interior of a human skull, it will be obvious that 
the cast of the cerebral chamber, representing the 
cerebrum of the ape, as completely covers over and 
overlaps the cast of the cerebellar chamber, repre- 
senting the cerebellum, as it does in the man 
(Fig. 21). A careless observer, forgetting that a 
soft structure like the brain loses its proper shape 
the moment it is taken out of the skull, may 
indeed mistake the uncovered condition of the 
cerebellum of an extracted and distorted brain for 
the natural relations of the parts ; but his error 
must become patent even to himself if he try to 
replace the brain within the cranial chamber. To 




A 



B 



B 



Chi 



vrrvpct.Tizee. 



Fig. 21. — Drawings of the internal casts of a Man's and of a 
Chimpanzee's skull, of the same absolute length, and placed in 
corresponding positions, A. Cerebrum ; B. Cerebellum. The 
former drawing is taken from a cast in the Museum of the 
Royal College of Surgeons, the latter from the photograph of 
the cast of a Chimpanzee's skull, which illustrates the paper by 
Mr. Marshall "On the Brain of the Chimpanzee" in the 



II 



THE POSTERIOR LOBES 137 



Natural History Review for July, 1861. The sharper definition 
of the lower edge of the cast of the cerebral chamber in the 
Chimpanzee arises from the circumstance that the tentorium 
remained in that skull and not in the Man's. The cast more 
accurately represents the brain in the Chimpanzee than in the 
Man ; and the great backward projection of the posterior lobes 
of the cerebrum of the v former, beyond the cerebellum, is 
conspicuous. 

suppose that the cerebellum of an ape is naturally 
uncovered behind is a miscomprehension com- 
parable only to that of one who should imagine 
that a man's lungs always occupy but a small 
portion of the thoracic cavity, because they do 
so when the chest is opened, and their elasticity 
is no longer neutralized by the pressure of the air. 

And the error is the less excusable, as it must 
become apparent to every one who examines a 
section of the skull of any ape above a Lemur, 
without taking the trouble to make a cast of it. 
For there is a very marked groove in every such 
skull, as in the human skull — which indicates the 
line of attachment of what is termed the tentorium 
— a sort of parchment-like shelf, or partition, 
which, in the recent state, is interposed between 
the cerebrum and cerebellum, and prevents the 
former from pressing upon the latter. (See Fig. 17.) 

This groove, therefore, indicates the line of 
separation between that part of the cranial cavity 
which contains the cerebrum, and that which 
contains the cerebellum ; and as the brain exactly 
fills the cavity of the skull, it is obvious that the 
relations of these two parts of the cranial cavity 



138 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

at once informs us of the relations of their con- 
tents. Now in man, in all the old world, and in 
all the new world Simise, with one exception, when 
the face is directed forwards, this line of attachment 
of the tentorium, or impression for the lateral 
sinus, as it is technically called, is nearly hori- 
zontal, and the cerebral chamber invariably over- 
laps or projects behind the cerebellar chamber. 
In the Howler Monkey or Mycetes (see Fig. 17), 
the line passes obliquely upwards and backwards, 
and the cerebral overlap is almost nil ; while in 
the Lemurs, as in the lower mammals, the line is 
much more inclined in the same direction, and the 
cerebellar chamber projects considerably beyond 
the cerebral. 

When the gravest errors respecting points so 
easily settled as this question respecting the 
posterior lobes, can be authoritatively propounded, 
it is no wonder that matters of observation, of no 
very complex character, but still requiring a certain 
amount of care, should have fared worse. Any 
one who cannot see the posterior lobe in an ape's 
brain is not likely to give a very valuable opinion 
respecting the posterior cornu or the hippocampus 
minor. If a man cannot see a church, it is pre- 
posterous to take his opinion about its altar-piece 
or painted window — so that I do not feel bound to 
enter upon any discussion of these points, but 
content myself with assuring the reader that 
the posterior cornu and the hippocampus minor, 



II PATTERN OF CONVOLUTIONS 139 

have now been seen — usually, at least as well 
developed as in man, and often better— not only 
in the Chimpanzee, the Orang, and the Gibbon, 
but in all the genera of the old world baboons and 
monkeys, and in most of the new world forms, 
including the Marmosets. 

In fact, all the abundant and trustworthy 
evidence (consisting of the results of careful 
investigations directed to the determination of 
these very questions, by skilled anatomists) which 
we now possess, leads to the conviction that, so 
far from the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, 
and the hippocampus minor, being structures 
peculiar to and characteristic of man, as they have 
been over and over again asserted to be, even 
after the publication of the clearest demonstration 
of the reverse, it is precisely these structures which 
are the most marked cerebral characters common 
to man with the apes. They are among the most 
distinctly Simian peculiarities which the human 
organism exhibits. 

As to the convolutions, the brains of the apes 
exhibit every stage of progress, from the almost 
smooth brain of the Marmoset, to the Orang and 
the Chimpanzee, which fall but little below 
Man. And it is most remarkable that, as soon 
as all the principal sulci appear, the pattern 
according to which they are arranged is identical 
with that of the corresponding sulci of man. The 
surface of the brain of a monkey exhibits a sort of 



140 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

skeleton map of man's, and in the man-like apes 
the details become more and more filled in, until 
it is only in minor characters, such as the greater 
excavation of the anterior lobes, the constant 
presence of fissures usually absent in man, and 
the different disposition and proportions of some 
convolutions, that the Chimpanzee's or the 
Orang's brain can be structurally distinguished 
from Man's. 

So far as cerebral structure goes, therefore, it 
is clear that Man differs less from the Chimpanzee 
or the Orang, than these do even from the 
Monkeys, and that the difference between the 
brains of the Chimpanzee and of Man is almost 
insignificant, when compared with that between 
the Chimpanzee brain and that of a Lemur. 

It must not be overlooked, however, that there 
is a very striking difference in absolute mass and 
weight between the lowest human brain and that 
of the highest ape — a difference which is all the 
more remarkable when we recollect that a full- 
grown Gorilla is probably pretty nearly twice as 
heavy as a Bosjesman, or as many an European 
woman. It may be doubted whether a healthy 
human adult brain ever weighed less than thirty- 
one or two ounces, or that the heaviest Gorilla 
brain has exceeded twenty ounces. 

This is a very noteworthy circumstance, and 
doubtless will one day help to furnish an explanation 
of the great gulf which intervenes between the 




Chimpanzee. €t 

Fig. 22. — Drawings of the cerebral hemispheres of a Man 



142 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

and of a Chimpanzee of the same length, in order to show the 
relative proportions of the parts : the former taken from a 
specimen, which Mr. Flower, Conservator of the Museum of 
the Royal College of Surgeons, was good enough to dissect 
for me ; the latter, from the photograph of a similarly 
dissected Chimpanzee's brain, given in Mr. Marshall's paper 
above referred to. a, posterior lobe ; b, lateral ventricle ; c, 
posterior cornu ; x, the hippocampus minor. 

lowest man and the highest ape in intellectual 
power ; x but it has little systematic value, for the 
simple reason that, as may be concluded from what 
has been already said respecting cranial capacity, 
the difference in weight of brain between the 
highest and the lowest men is far greater, both 

1 I say help to furnish : for I by no means believe that it 
was any original difference of cerebral quality, or quantity, 
which caused that divergence between the human and the 
pithecoid stirpes, which has ended in the present enormous gulf 
between them. It is no doubt perfectly true, in a certain sense, 
that all difference of function is a result of difference of struc- 
ture ; or, in other words, of difference in the combination of 
the primary molecular forces of living substance ; and, starting 
from this undeniable axiom, objectors occasionally, and with 
much seeming plausibility, argue that the vast intellectual 
chasm between the Ape and Man implies a corresponding 
structural chasm in the organs of the intellectual functions ; so 
that, it is said, the n on -discovery of such vast differences 
proves, not that they are absent, but that Science is incompetent 
to detect them. A very little consideration, however, will, I 
think, show the fallacy of this reasoning. Its validity hangs 
upon the assumption, that intellectual power depends altogether 
on the brain — whereas the brain is only one condition out of 
many on which intellectual manifestations depend ; the others 
being, chiefly, the organs of the senses and the motor appa- 
ratuses, especially those which are concerned in prehension and 
in the production of articulate speech. 

A man born dumb, notwithstanding his great cerebral mass 
and his inheritance of strong intellectual instincts, would be 
capable of few higher intellectual manifestations than . an 



II 



WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN 143 



relatively and absolutely, than that between the 
lowest man and the highest ape. The latter, as 
has been seen, is represented by, say twelve, ounces 
of cerebral substance absolutely, or by 32 : 20 re- 
latively ; but as the largest recorded human brain 
weighed between 65 and 66 ounces, the former 
difference is represented by more than 33 ounces 
absolutely, or by 65 : 32 relatively. Regarded 
systematically, the cerebral differences of man and 
apes, are not of more than generic value; his 



Orang or a Chimpanzee, if he were confined to the society of 
dumb associates. And yet there might not be the slightest 
discernible difference between his brain and that of a highly 
intelligent and cultivated person. The dumbness might be the 
result of a defective structure of the mouth, or of the tongue, 
or a mere defective innervation of these parts ; or it might 
result from congenital deafness, caused by some minute delect 
of the internal ear, which only a careful anatomist could 
discover. 

The argument, that because there is an immense difference 
between a Man's intelligence and an Ape's, therefore, there 
must be an equally immense difference between their brains, 
appears to me to be about as well based as the reasoning by 
which one should endeavour to prove that, because there is a 
"great gulf" between a watch that keeps accurate time and 
another that will not go at all, there is therefore a great 
structural hiatus between the two watches. A hair in the 
balance-wheel, a little rust on a pinion, a bend in a tooth of 
the escapement, a something so slight that only the practised 
eye of the watchmaker can discover it, may be the source of all 
the difference. 

And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of 
articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man 
(whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very 
easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspicuous structural 
difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable 
and practically infinite divergence of the Human from the 
Simian Stirps, 



144 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

Family distinction resting chiefly on his dentition, 
his pelvis, and his lower limbs. 

Thus, whatever system of organs be studied, 
the comparison of their modifications in the ape 
series leads to one and the same result — that the 
structural differences which separate Man from 
the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee are not so great 
as those which separate the Gorilla from the 
lower apes. 

But in enunciating this important truth I must 
guard myself against a form of misunderstanding, 
which is very prevalent. I find, in fact, that 
those who endeavour to teach what nature so 
clearly shows us in this matter, are liable to have 
their opinions misrepresented and their phrase* 
ology garbled, until they seem to say that the 
structural differences between man and even the 
highest apes are small and insignificant. Let me 
take this opportunity then of distinctly asserting, 
on the contrary, that they are great and signifi- 
cant ; that every bone of a Gorilla bears marks by 
which it might be distinguished from the corre- 
sponding bone of a Man ; and that, in the present 
creation, at any rate, no intermediate link bridges 
over the gap between Homo and Troglodytes. 

It would be no less wrong than absurd to deny 
the existence of this chasm ; but it is at least 
equally wrong and absurd to exaggerate its mag- 
nitude and, resting on the admitted fact of its 



II 



MAN ONE OF THE PRIMATES 145 



existence, to refuse to inquire whether it is wide 
or narrow. Remember, if you will, that there is 
no existing link between Man and the Gorilla, 
but do not forget that there is a no less sharp line 
of demarcation, a no less complete absence of any- 
transitional form, between the Gorilla and the 
Orang, or the Orang and the Gibbon. I say, not 
less sharp, though it is somewhat narrower. The 
structural differences between Man and the Man- 
like apes certainly justify our regarding him 
as constituting a family apart from them; 
though, inasmuch as he differs less from them 
than they do from other families of the same 
order, there can be no justification for placing 
him in a distinct order. 

And thus the sagacious foresight of the great 
lawgiver of systematic zoology, Linnaeus, becomes 
justified, and a century of anatomical research 
brings us back to his conclusion, that man is a 
member of the same order (for which the Linnsean 
term Primates ought to be retained) as the Apes 
and Lemurs. This order is now divisible into seven 
families, of about equal systematic value : the 
first, the Anthropini, contains Man alone ; the 
second, the Catarhini, embraces the old world 
apes; the third, the Platyrhini, all new world 
apes, except the Marmosets; the fourth, the 
Arctopithecini, contains the Marmosets ; the 
fifth, the Lemurini, the Lemurs — from which 
Cheiromys should probably be excluded to form a 
1H 



146 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS 



II 



sixth distinct family, the Cheiromyini; while 
the seventh, the Galeopithecini, contains only 
the flying Lemur Galeopithecus, — a strange form 
which almost touches on the Bats, as the 
Cheiromys puts on a Rodent clothing, and the 
Lemurs simulate Insectivora. 

Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with 
so extraordinary a series of gradations as this — 
leading us insensibly from the crown and summit 
of the animal creation down to creatures, from 
which there is but a step, as it seems, to the 
lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of the 
placental Mammalia. It is as if nature herself 
had foreseen the arrogance of man, and with 
Roman severity had provided that his intellect, 
by its very triumphs, should call into prominence 
the slaves, admonishing the conqueror that he is 
but dust. 

These are the chief facts, this the immediate 
conclusion from them to which I adverted in the 
commencement of this Essay. The facts, I 
believe, cannot be disputed ; and if so, the con- 
clusion appears to me to be inevitable. 

But if Man be separated by no greater structu- 
ral barrier from the brutes than they are from 
one another — then it seems to follow that if any 
process of physical causation can be discovered by 
which the genera and families of ordinary animals 
have been produced, that process of causation is 



II 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN 147 



amply sufficient to account for the origin of Man. 
In other words, if it could be shown that the 
Marmosets, for example, have arisen by gradual 
modification of the ordinary Platyrhini, or that 
both Marmosets and Platyrhini are modified 
ramifications of a primitive stock — then, there 
would be no rational ground for doubting that 
man might have originated, in the one case, by 
the gradual modification of a man-like ape; or, 
in the other case, as a ramification of the same 
primitive stock as those apes. 

At the present moment, but one such process 
of physical causation has any evidence in its 
favour; or, in other words, there is but one 
hypothesis regarding the origin of species of 
animals in general which has any scientific exist- 
ence — that propounded by Mr. Darwin. For 
Lamarck, sagacious as many of his views were, 
mingled them with so much that was crude and 
even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit which 
his originality might have effected, had he been a 
more sober and cautious thinker; and though I 
have heard of the announcement of a formula 
touching "the ordained continuous becoming of 
organic forms," it is obvious that it is the first 
duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible, and that a 
qua-qua-versal proposition of this kind, which 
may be read backwards, or forwards, or sideways, 
with exactly the same amount of signification, 
does not really exist, though it may seem to do so. 



148 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

At the present moment, therefore, the question 
of the relation of man to the lower animals re- 
solves itself, in the end, into the larger question 
of the tenability, or untenability, of Mr. Darwin's 
views. But here we enter upon difficult ground, 
and it behoves us to define our exact position 
with the greatest care. 

It cannot be doubted, I think, that Mr. Darwin 
has satisfactorily proved that what he terms 
selection, or selective modification, must occur, 
and does occur, in nature ; and he has also proved 
to superfluity that such selection is competent to 
produce forms as distinct, structurally, as some 
genera even are. If the animated world presented 
us with none but structural differences, I should 
have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Darwin 
had demonstrated the existence of a true physical 
cause, amply competent to account for the origin 
of living species, and of man among the rest. 

But, in addition to their structural distinctions, 
the species of animals and plants, or at least 
a great number of them, exhibit physiological 
characters — what are known as distinct species, 
structurally, being for the most part either alto- 
gether incompetent to breed one with another ; or 
if they breed, the resulting mule, or hybrid, is 
unable to perpetuate its race with another hybrid 
of the same kind. 

A true physical cause is, however, admitted to 
be such only on one condition — that it shall 



II 



darwin's hypothesis 149 



account for all the phenomena which come within 
the range of its operation. If it is inconsistent 
with any one phenomenon, it must be rejected; if 
it fails to explain any one phenomenon, it is so 
far weak, so far to be suspected ; though it may 
have a perfect right to claim provisional accept- 
ance. 

Now, Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not, so far as 
I am aware, inconsistent with any known biological 
fact; on the contrary, if admitted, the facts of 
Development, of Comparative Anatomy, of Geo- 
graphical Distribution, and of Palaeontology, become 
connected together, and exhibit a meaning such as 
they never possessed before; and I, for one, am 
fully convinced, that if not precisely true, that 
hypothesis is as near an approximation to the 
truth as, for example, the Copernican hypothesis 
was to the true theory of the planetary motions. 

But, for all this, our acceptance of the Dar- 
winian hypothesis must be provisional so long as 
one link in the chain of evidence is wanting ; and 
so long as all the animals and plants certainly 
produced by selective breeding from a common 
stock are fertile, and their progeny are fertile with 
one another, that link will be wanting. For, so 
long, selective breeding will not be proved to be 
competent to do all that is required of it to pro- 
duce natural species. 

I have put this conclusion as strongly as 
possible before the reader, because the last posi- 



150 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

tion in which I wish to find myself is that of an 
advocate for Mr. Darwin's, or any other views ; if 
by an advocate is meant one whose business it is 
to smooth over real difficulties, and to persuade 
where he cannot convince. 

In justice to Mr. Darwin, however, it must be 
admitted that the conditions of fertility and 
sterility are very ill understood, and that every 
day's advance in knowledge leads us to regard the 
hiatus in his evidence as of less and less import- 
ance, when set against the multitude of facts 
which harmonize with, or receive an explanation 
from, his doctrines. 

I adopt Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, therefore, sub- 
ject to the production of proof that physiological 
species may be produced by selective breeding; 
just as a physical philosopher may accept the 
undulatory theory of light, subject to the proof of 
the existence of the hypothetical ether ; or as the 
chemist adopts the atomic theory, subject to the 
proof of the existence of atoms ; and for exactly 
the same reasons, namely, that it has an immense 
amount of prima facie probability : that it is the 
only means at present within reach of reducing 
the chaos of observed facts to order ; and lastly, 
that it is the most powerful instrument of investi- 
gation which has been presented to naturalists 
since the invention of the natural system of classi- 
fication, and the commencement of the systematic 
study of embryology. 



II OBJECTIONS : SENTIMENTAL AND OTHER 151 

But even leaving Mr. Darwin's views aside, the 
whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so 
complete and crushing an argument against the 
intervention of any but what are termed secondary 
causes, in the production of all the phenomena of 
the universe ; that, in view of the intimate rela- 
tions between Man and the rest of the living 
world, and between the forces exerted by the 
latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for 
doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of 
Nature's great progression, from the formless to 
the formed — from the inorganic to the organic — 
from blind force to conscious intellect and will. 

Science has fulfilled her function when she has 
ascertained and enunciated truth ; and were these 
pages addressed to men of science only, I should 
now close this Essay, knowing that my colleagues 
have learned to respect nothing but evidence, and 
to believe that their highest duty lies in sub- 
mitting to it, however it may jar against their 
inclinations. 

But desiring, as I do, to reach the wider circle 
of the intelligent public, it would be unworthy 
cowardice were I to ignore the repugnance with 
which the majority of my readers are likely to 
meet the conclusions to which the most careful 
and conscientious study I have been able to give 
to this matter, has led me. 

On all sides I shall hear the cry — " We are men 



152 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

and women, not a mere better sort of apes, a little 
longer in the leg, more compact in the foot, and 
bigger in brain than your brutal Chimpanzees and 
Gorillas. The power of knowledge— the con- 
science of good and evil — the pitiful tenderness of 
human affections, raise us out of all real fellowship 
with the brutes, however closely they may seem to 
approximate us." 

To this I can only reply that the exclamation 
would be most just and would have my own entire 
sympathy, if it were only relevant. But, it is not 
I who seek to base Man's dignity upon his great 
toe, or insinuate that we are lost if an Ape has a 
hippocampus minor. On the contrary, I have 
done my best to sweep away this vanity. I have 
endeavoured to show that no absolute structural 
line of demarcation, wider than that between the 
animals which immediately succeed us in the 
scale, can be drawn between the animal world and 
ourselves ; and I may add the expression of my 
belief that the attempt to draw a psychical dis- 
tinction is equally futile, and that even the 
highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin 
to germinate in lower forms of life. 1 At the same 



1 It is so rare a pleasure for me to find Professor Owen's 
opinions in entire accordance with my own, that I cannot for- 
bear from quoting a paragraph which appeared in his Essay 
"On the Characters, &c, of the Class Mammalia," in the 
Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London for 
1857, but is unaccountably omitted in the "Keade Lecture" 
delivered before the University of Cambridge two years later, 



II 



OBJECTIONS 153 



time, no one is more strongly convinced than I am 
of the vastness of the gulf between civilized man 
and the brutes ; or is more certain that whether 
from them or not, he is assuredly not of them. 
No one is less disposed to think lightly of the 
present dignity, or desparingly of the future hopes, 
of the only consciously intelligent denizen of this 
world. 

We are indeed told by those who assume 
authority in these matters, that the two sets of 
opinions are incompatible, and that the belief in 
the unity of origin of man and brutes involves the 
brutalization and degradation of the former. But 
is this really so ? Could not a sensible child con- 
fute by obvious arguments, the shallow rhetori- 
cians who w r ould force this conclusion upon us ? 
Is it, indeed, true, that the Poet, or the Philoso- 
pher, or the Artist whose genius is the glory of his 
age, is degraded from his high estate by the 



which is otherwise nearly a reprint of the paper in question. 
Prof. Owen writes : 

"Not being able to appreciate or conceive of the distinction 
between the psychical phenomena of a Chimpanzee and of a 
Boschisman or of an Aztec, with arrested brain growth, as being 
of a nature so essential as to preclude a comparison between 
them, or as being other than a difference of degree, I cannot 
shut my eyes to the significance of that all-pervading similitude 
of structure — every tooth, every bone, strictly homologous — 
which makes the determination of the difference between Homo 
and Pithecus the anatomist's difficulty." 

Surely it is a little singular, that the " anatomist," who finds 
it "difficult" to determine "the difference" between Homo 
and Pithecus, should yet range them on anatomical grounds, in 
distinct sub-classes. 



154 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

undoubted historical probability, not to say cer- 
tainty, that he is the direct descendant of some 
naked and bestial savage, whose intelligence was 
just sufficient to make him a little more cunning 
than the Fox, and by so much more dangerous 
than the Tiger ? Or is he bound to howl and 
grovel on all fours because of the wholly unques- 
tionable fact, that he was once an egg, which no 
ordinary power of discrimination could distinguish 
from that of a Dog ? Or is the philanthropist, or 
the saint, to give up his endeavours to lead a noble 
life, because the simplest study of man's nature 
reveals, at its foundations, all the selfish passions, 
and fierce appetites of the merest quadruped ? Is 
mother-love vile because a hen shows it, or fidelity 
base because dogs possess it ? 

The common sense of the mass of mankind 
will answer these questions without a moment's 
hesitation. Healthy humanity, finding itself hard 
pressed to escape from real sin and degradation, 
will leave the brooding over speculative pollution 
to the cynics and the "righteous overmuch " who, 
disagreeing in everything else, unite in blind 
insensibility to the nobleness of the visible world, 
and in inability to appreciate the grandeur of the 
place Man occupies therein. 

Nay more, thoughtful men, once escaped from 
the blinding influences of traditional prejudice, 
will find in the lowly stock whence Man has 
sprung, the best evidence of the splendour of his 



II OBJECTIONS 155 

capacities ; and will discern in his long progress 
through the Past, a reasonable ground of faith in 
his attainment of a nobler Future. 

They will remember that in comparing civilised 
man with the animal world, one is as the Alpine 
traveller, who sees the mountains soaring into the 
sky and can hardly discern where the deep 
shadowed crags and roseate peaks end, and where 
the clouds of heaven begin. Surely the awe- 
struck voyager may be excused if, at first, he 
refuses to believe the geologist, who tells him that 
these glorious masses are, after all, the hardened 
mud of primeval seas, or the cooled slag of sub- 
terranean furnaces — of one substance with the 
dullest clay, but raised by inward forces to that 
place of proud and seemingly inaccessible glory. 

But the geologist is right ; and due reflection 
on his teachings, instead of diminishing our 
reverence and our wonder, adds all the force of 
intellectual sublimity to the mere aesthetic intui- 
tion of the uninstructed beholder. 

And after passion and prejudice have died 
away, the same result will attend the teachings of 
the naturalist respecting that great Alps and 
Andes of the living world — Man. Our reverence 
for the nobility of manhood will not be lessened 
by the knowledge that Man is, in substance and 
in structure, one with the brutes; for, he alone 
possesses the marvellous endowment of intelligible 
and rational speech, whereby, in the secular period 



156 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n 

of his existence, he has slowly accumulated and 
organised the experience which is almost wholly 
lost with the cessation of every individual life in 
other animals ; so that, now, he stands raised upon 
it as on a mountain top, far above the level of his 
humble fellows, and transfigured from his grosser 
nature by reflecting, here and there, a ray from the 
infinite source of truth. 



Ill 

ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 

I HAVE endeavoured to show, in the preceding 
Essay, that the Anthropini, or Man Family, form 
a very well-defined group of the Primates, between 
which and the immediately following Family, the 
CATARHINI, there is, in the existing world, the 
same entire absence of any transitional form or 
connecting link, as between the Catarhini and 

PLATYRH1NI. 

It is a commonly received doctrine, however, 
that the structural intervals between the various 
existing modifications of organic beings may be 
diminished, or even obliterated, if we take into 
account the long and varied succession of animals 
and plants which have preceded these now living 
and which are known to us only by their fossilized 
remains. How far this doctrine is well based, how 
far, on the other hand, as our knowledge at 
present stands, it is an overstatement of the real 
facts of the case, and an exaggeration of the con- 



158 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



elusions fairly deducible from them, are points of 
grave importance, but into the discussion of which 
I do not, at present, propose to enter. It is 
enough that such a view of the relations of extinct 
to living beings has been propounded, to lead us 
to inquire, with anxiety, how far the recent dis- 
coveries of human remains in a fossil state bear 
out, or oppose, that view. 

I shall confine myself, in discussing this question, 
to those fragmentary Human skulls from the 
caves of Engis in the valley of the Meuse, in 
Belgium, and of the Neanderthal, near Dussel- 
dorf, the geological relations of which have been 
examined with so much care by Sir Charles Lyell ; 
upon whose high authority I shall take it for 
granted, that the Engis skull belonged to a 
contemporary of the Mammoth (Ulephas primi- 
genius) and of the woolly Rhinoceros {Rhinoceros 
tichorhinus), with the bones of which it was found 
associated ; and that the Neanderthal skull is of 
great, though uncertain, antiquity. Whatever be 
the geological age of the latter skull, I conceive it 
is quite safe (on the ordinary principles of paleon- 
tological reasoning) to assume that the former 
takes us to, at least, the further side of the vague 
biological limit, which separates the present 
geological epoch from that which immediately 
preceded it. And there can be no doubt that the 
physical geography of Europe has changed 
wonderfully, since the bones of Men and Mam- 



Ill 



THE MAN OF ENGIS 



159 



moths, Hyaenas and Rhinoceroses were washed 
pell-mell into the cave of Engis. 

The skull from the cave of Engis was originally 




Fig. 23. — The skull from the cave of Engis — viewed from the 
right side. One half the size of nature, a glabella, b occipital 
protuberance {a to b glabello -occipital line), c auditory foramen. 

discovered by Professor Schmerling, and was 
described by him, together with other human 
remains disinterred at the same time, in his 



160 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



valuable work, " Kecherches sur les Ossemens 
fossiles decouverts dans les Cavernes de la Province 
de Liege," published in 1833 (p. 59, et seq), from 
which the following paragraphs are extracted, the 
precise expressions of the author being, as far as 
possible, preserved. 

"In the first place, I must remark that these human remains, 
which are in my possession, are characterised, like the thousands 
of bones which I have lately been disinterring, by the extent 
of the decomposition which they have undergone, which is 
precisely the same as that of the extinct species : all, with a 
few exceptions, are broken ; some few are rounded, as is fre- 
quently found to be the case in fossil remains of other species. 
The fractures are vertical or oblique ; none of them are eroded ; 
their colour does not differ from that of other fossil bones, and 
varies from whitish yellow to blackish. All are lighter than 
recent bones, with the exception of those which have a calcareous 
incrustation, and the cavities of which are filled with such 
matter. 

" The cranium which I have caused to be figured, Plate I, 
figs. 1, 2, is that of an old person. The sutures are beginning 
to be effaced : all the facial bones are wanting, and of the 
temporal bones only a fragment of that of the right side is 
preserved. 

"The face and the base of the cranium had been detached 
before the skull was deposited in the cave, for we were unable 
to find those parts, though the whole cavern was regularly 
searched. The cranium was met with at a depth of a metre and 
a half [five feet nearly] hidden under an osseous breccia, com- 
posed of the remains of small animals, and containing one 
rhinoceros' tusk, with several teeth of horses and of ruminants. 
This breccia, which has been spoken of above (p. 31), was a 
metre [3-£ feet about] wide, and rose to the height of a metre 
and a half above the floor of the cavern, to the walls of which 
it adhered strongly. 



Ill 



THE ENGIS SKULL 161 



" The earth which contained this human skull exhibited no 
trace of disturbance : teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hysena, and 
bear, surrounded it on all sides. 

1 'The famous Blumenbach l has directed attention to the 
differences presented by the form and the dimensions of human 
crania of different races. This important work would have 
assisted us greatly, if the face, a part essential for the determina- 
tion of race, with more or less accuracy, had not been wanting 
in our fossil cranium. 

"We are convinced that even if the skull had been complete, 
it would not have been possible to pronounce, with certainty, 
upon a single specimen ; for individual variations are so numerous 
in the crania of one and the same race, that one cannot, without 
laying one's self open to large chances of error, draw any inference 
from a single fragment of a cranium to the general form of the 
head to which it belonged. 

"Nevertheless, in order to neglect no point respecting the 
form of this fossil skull, we may observe that, from the first, 
the elongated and narrow form of the forehead attracted our 
attention. 

" In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its narrowness, 
and the form of the orbit, approximate it more nearly to the 
cranium of an Ethiopian than to that of an European ; the 
elongated form and the produced occiput are also characters 
which we believe to be observable in our fossil cranium ; but 
to remove all doubt upon that subject I have caused the con- 
tours of the cranium of an European and of an Ethiopian to 
be drawn and the foreheads represented, Plate II, Figs. 1 and 2, 
and, in the same plate, Figs. 3 and 4, will render the differences 
easily distinguishable ; and a single glance at the figures will 
be more instructive than a long and wearisome description. 

' ' At whatever conclusion we may arrive as to the origin of 
the man from whence this fossil skull proceeded, we may express 
an opinion without exposing ourselves to a fruitless controversy. 
Each may adopt the hypothesis which seems to him most prob- 
able : for my own part, I hold it to be demonstrated that this 

1 Decas Collectionis suce craniorum dixersarum gentium 
illustrata.—^XXv&gK, 1790-1820. 
175 



162 HUMAN FOSSILS m 

cranium has belonged to a person of limited intellectual faculties, 
and we conclude thence that it belonged to a man of a low degree 
of civilization : a deduction which is borne out by contrasting 
the capacity of the frontal with that of the occipital region. 

" Another cranium of a young individual was discovered in the 
floor of the cavern beside the tooth of an elephant ; the skull 
was entire when found, but the moment it was lifted it fell into 
pieces, which I have not, as yet, been able to put together again. 
But I have represented the bones of the upper jaw, Plate I, Fig. 
5. The state of the alveoli and the teeth, shows that the molars 
had not yet pierced the gum. Detached milk molars and some 
fragments of a human skull, proceed from this same place. The 
figure 3 represents a human superior incisor tooth, the size of 
which is truly remarkable. 1 

" Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, the 
molar teeth of which are worn down to the roots. 

" I possess two vertebrse, a first and last dorsal. 

"A clavicle of the left side (see Plate III, Fig. 1) ; although 
it belonged to a young individual, this bone shows that he must 
have been of great stature. 2 

" Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not indicate 
that the height of the man, to whom they belonged, exceeded 
five feet and a half. 

"As to the remains of the upper extremities, those which 
are in my possession consist merely of a fragment of an ulna and 
of a radius (Plate III, Figs. 5 and 6). 

" Figure 2, Plate IV., represents a metacarpal bone, contained 
in the breccia, of which we have spoken ; it was found in the 
lower part above the cranium : add to this some metacarpal 
bones, found at very different distances, half-a-dozen metatarsals, 
three phalanges of the hand, and one of the foot. 

1 In a subsequent passage, Schmerling remarks upon the oc- 
currence of an incisor tooth " of enormous size " from the caverns 
of Engihoul. The tooth figured is somewhat long, but its dimen- 
sions do not appear to me to be otherwise remarkable. 

2 The figure of this clavicle measures 5 inches from end to 
end in a straight line — so that the bone is rather a small than a 
large one. 



Ill 



THE ENGIS SKULL 163 



" This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human bones 
collected in the cavern of Engis, which has preserved for us the 
remains of three individuals, surrounded by those of the 
Elephant, of the Rhinoceros, and of Carnivora of species un- 
known in the present creation." 

From the cave of Engihoul, opposite that of 
Engis, on the right bank of the Meuse, Schmerling 
obtained the remains of three other individuals of 
Man, among which were only two fragments of 
parietal bones, but many bones of the extremities. 
In one case, a broken fragment of an ulna was 
soldered to a like fragment of a radius by stalag- 
mite, a condition frequently observed among the 
bones of the Cave Bear (Ursus spelwus), found in 
the Belgian caverns. 

It was in the cavern of Engis that Professor 
Schmerling found, incrusted with stalagmite and 
joined to a stone, the pointed bone implement, 
which he has figured in Fig. 7 of his Plate 
XXXVI, and worked flints were found by him 
in all those Belgian caves, which contained an 
abundance of fossil bones. 

A short letter from M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, pub- 
lished in the " Comptes Rendus " of the Academy 
of Sciences of Paris, for July 2nd, 1838, speaks of a 
visit (and apparently a very hasty one) paid to the 
collection of Professor " Schermidt " (which is pre- 
sumably a misprint for Schmerling) at Liege. The 
writer briefly criticises the drawings which illustrate 
Schmerling's work, and affirms that the " human 



164 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



cranium is a little longer than it is represented " 
in Schmerling's figure. The only other remark 
worth quoting is this : — 

"The aspect of the human bones differs little from that of 
the cave bones, with which we are familiar, and of which there 
is a considerable collection in the same place. With respect to 
their special forms, compared with those of the varieties of 
recent human crania, few certain conclusions can be put forward ; 
for much greater differences exist between the different specimens 
of well-characterized varieties, than between the fossil cranium 
of Liege and that of one of those varieties selected as a term of 
comparison. " 

Geoffroy St. Hilaire's remarks are, it will be 
observed, little but an echo of the philosophic 
doubts of the describer and discoverer of the 
remains. As to the critique upon Schmerling's 
figures, I find that the side view given by the 
latter is really about T 3 oths of an inch shorter 
than the original, and that the front view is 
diminished to about the same extent. Otherwise 
the representation is not, in any way, inaccurate, 
but corresponds very well with the cast which is 
in my possession. 

A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling 
seems to have missed, has since been fitted on to 
the rest of the cranium by an accomplished anat- 
omist, Dr. Spring of Liege, under whose direction 
an excellent plaster cast was made for Sir Charles 
Lyell. It is upon and from a duplicate of that cast 
that my own observations and the accompanying 






HI THE ENGIS SKULL 165 

figures, the outlines of which are copied from very 
accurate Camera lucida drawings, by my friend 
Mr. Busk, reduced to one-half of the natural size, 
are made. 

As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of the 
skull is destroyed, and the facial bones are entirely 
absent ; but the roof of the cranium, consisting of 
the frontal, parietal, and the greater part of the 
occipital bones, as far as the middle of the occi- 
pital foramen, is entire, or nearly so. The left 
temporal bone is wanting. Of the right temporal, 
the parts in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
auditory foramen, the mastoid process, and a con- 
siderable portion of the squamous element of the 
temporal are well preserved (Fig. 23). 

The lines of fracture which remain between the 
coadjusted pieces of the skull, and are faithfully 
displayed in Schmerling's figure, are readily trace- 
able in the cast. The sutures are also discernible, 
but the complex disposition of their serrations, 
shown in the figure, is not obvious in the cast. 
Though the ridges which give attachment to 
muscles are not excessively prominent, they are 
well marked, and taken together with the appar- 
ently well developed frontal sinuses, and the con- 
dition of the sutures, leave no doubt on my mind 
that the skull is that of an adult, if not middle- 
aged man. 

The extreme length of the skull is 7*7 inches. 
Its extreme breadth, which corresponds very nearly 




FlG. 24. — The Engis skull viewed from above (A) and in 
front (£). 



Ill 



THE ENGIS SKULL 167 



with the interval between the parietal protuber- 
ances, is not more than 5*4 inches. The propor- 
tion of the length to the breadth is therefore very 
nearly as 100 to 70. If a line be drawn from the 
point at which the brow curves in towards the 
root of the nose, and which is called the " glabella " 
(a), (Fig. 23), to the occipital protuberance (b), and 
the distance to the highest point of the arch of 
the skull be measured perpendicularly from this 
line, it will be found to be 4*75 inches. Viewed 
from above, Fig. 24, A, the forehead presents an 
evenly rounded curve, and passes into the contour 
of the sides and back of the skull, which describes 
a tolerably regular elliptical curve. 

The front view (Fig. 24, B) shows that the roof of 
the skull was very regularly and elegantly arched 
in the transverse direction, and that the transverse 
diameter was a little less below the parietal pro- 
tuberances, than above them. The forehead cannot 
be called narrow in relation to the rest of the skull, 
nor can it be called a retreating forehead ; on the 
contrary, the antero-posterior contour of the skull 
is well arched, so that the distance along that con- 
tour, from the nasal depression to the occipital 
protuberance, measures about 13*75 inches. The 
transverse arc of the skull, measured from one 
auditory foramen to the other, across the middle 
of the sagittal suture, is about 13 inches. The 
sagittal suture itself is 5*5 inches long. 

The supraciliary prominences or brow- ridges 



168 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



(on each side of a, Fig. 23) are well, but not ex- 
cessively, developed, and are separated by a median 
depression. Their principal elevation is disposed 
so obliquely that I judge them to be due to large 
frontal sinuses. 

If a line joining the glabella and the occipital 
protuberance {a, b, Fig. 23) be made horizontal, no 
part of the occipital region projects more than T Vth 
of an inch behind the posterior extremity of that 
line, and the upper edge of the auditory foramen 
(c) is almost in contact with a line drawn parallel 
with this upon the outer surface of the skull. 

A transverse line drawn from one auditory fora- 
men to the other traverses, as usual, the fore part of 
the occipital foramen. The capacity of the interior 
of this fragmentary skull has not been ascertained. 

The history of the Human remains from the 
cavern in the Neanderthal may best be given in 
the words of their original describer, Dr. Schaaff- 
hausen, 1 as translated by Mr. Busk. 

" In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was 
discovered in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near 
Hochdal, between Diisseldorf and Elberfeld. Of this, however, 
I was unable to procure more than a plaster cast of the cranium, 
taken at Elberfeld, from which I drew up an account of its 

1 On the Crania of the most Ancient Races of Man. — By Pro- 
fessor D. Schaaffhausen, of Bonn. (From Miiller's Archiv., 
1858, pp. 453.) With Remarks, and original Figures, taken 
from a Cast of the Neanderthal Cranium. By George Busk, 
F.R.S., &c. Natural History Review, April, 1861. 



Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 169 

remarkable conformation, which was, in the first instance, read 
on the 4th of February, 1857, at the meeting of the Lower Rhine 
Medical and Natural History Society, at Bonn. 1 Subsequently 
Dr. Fuhlrott, to whom science is indebted for the preservation 
of these bones, which were not at first regarded as human, and 
into whose possession they afterwards came, brought the cranium 
from Elberfeld to Bonn, and entrusted it to me for more accurate 
anatomical examination. At the General Meeting of the Natural 
History Society of Prussian Rhineland and Westphalia, at Bonn, 
on the 2nd of June, 1857, 2 Dr. Fuhlrott himself gave a full 
account of the locality, and of the circumstances under which 
the discovery was made. He was of opinion that the bones 
might be regarded as fossil ; and in coming to this conclusion, 
he laid especial stress upon the existence of dendritic deposits, 
with which their surface was covered, and which were first 
noticed upon them by Professor Mayer. To this communication 
I appended a brief report on the results of my anatomical ex- 
amination of the bones. The conclusions at which I arrived 
were : 1st. That the extraordinary form of the skull was due 
to a natural conformation hitherto not known to exist, even in 
the most barbarous races. 2nd. That these remarkable human 
remains belonged to a period antecedent to the time of the Celts 
and Germans, and were in all probability derived from one of 
the wild races of North-western Europe, spoken of by Latin 
writers ; and which were encountered as autochthones by the 
German immigrants. And Brdly. That it was beyond doubt 
that these human relics were traceable to a period at which the 
latest animals of the diluvium still existed ; but that no proof 
of this assumption, nor consequently of their so-termed fossil 
condition, was afforded by the circumstances under which the 
bones were discovered. 

"As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description of 
these circumstances, I borrow the following account of them 
from one of his letters. * A small cave or grotto, high enough 



1 Verhandl. d. Naturhist. Vcreins der preuss. Rheinlande 
und Westjjhalens., xiv. — Bonn, 1857. 

2 lb, Correspondenzblatt. No. 2. 



170 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



to admit a man, and about 15 feet deep from the entrance, 
which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists in the southern wall of the 
gorge of the Neanderthal, as it is termed, at a distance of about 
100 feet from the Dtissel, and about 60 feet above the bottom of 
the valley. In its earlier and uninjured condition, this cavern 
opened upon a narrow plateau lying in front of it, and from 
which the rocky wall descended almost perpendicularly into the 
river. It could be reached, though with difficulty, from above. 
The uneven floor was covered to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet with 
a deposit of mud, sparingly intermixed with rounded fragments 
of chert. In the removing of this deposit, the bones were dis- 
covered. The skull was first noticed, placed nearest to the 
entrance of the cavern ; and further in, the other bones, lying 
in the same horizontal plane. Of this I was assured, in the 
most positive terms, by two labourers who were employed to 
clear out the grotto, and who were questioned by me on the 
spot. At first no idea was entertained of the bones being 
human ; and it was not till several weeks after their discovery 
that they were recognised as such by me, and placed in security. 

" * But, as the importance of the discovery was not at the time 
perceived, the labourers were very careless in the collecting, and 
secured chiefly only the larger bones ; and to this circumstance 
it may be attributed that fragments merely of the probably 
perfect skeleton came into my possession. ' 

"My anatomical examination of these bones afforded the 
following results : — 

"The cranium is of unusual size, and of a long-elliptical form. 
A most remarkable peculiarity is at once obvious in the ex- 
traordinary development of the frontal sinuses, owing to which 
the superciliary ridges, which coalesce completely in the middle, 
are rendered so prominent, that the frontal bone exhibits a 
considerable hollow or depression above, or rather behind them, 
whilst a deep depression is also formed in the situation of the 
root of the nose. The forehead is narrow and low, though the 
middle and hinder portions of the cranial arch are well developed. 
Unfortunately, the fragment of the skull that has been preserved 
consists only of the portion situated above the roof of the 
orbits and the superior occipital ridges, which are greatly de- 






Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 171 

veloped, and almost conjoined so as to form a horizontal 
eminence. It includes almost the whole of the frontal bone, 
both parietals, a small part of the ^squamous and the upper- 
third of the occipital. The recently fractured surfaces show that 
the skull was broken at the time of its disinterment. The 
cavity holds 16,876 grains of water, whence its cubical contents 
may be estimated at 57*64 inches, or 1033*24 cubic centimetres. 
In making this estimation, the water is supposed to stand on a 
level with the orbital plate of the frontal, with the deepest notch 
in the squamous margin of the parietal, and with the superior 
semicircular ridges of the occipital. Estimated in dried millet- 
seed, the contents equalled 31 ounces, Prussian Apothecaries' 
weight. The semicircular line indicating the upper boundary of 
the attachment of the temporal muscle, though not very strongly 
marked, ascends nevertheless to more than half the height of the 
parietal bone. On the right superciliary ridge is observable an 
oblique furrow or depression, indicative of an injury received 
during life. 1 The coronal and sagittal sutures are on the exterior 
nearly closed, and on the inside so completely ossified as to have 
left no traces whatever, whilst the lambdoidal remains quite 
open. The depressions for the Pacchionian glands are deep and 
numerous ; and there is an unusually deep vascular groove 
immediately behind the coronal suture, which, as it terminates 
in a foramen, no doubt transmitted a vena emissaria. The 
course of the frontal suture is indicated externally by a slight 
ridge ; and where it joins the coronal, this ridge rises into a 
small protuberance. The course of the sagittal suture is grooved, 
and above the angle of the occipital bone the parietals are 

depressed. 

mm. 2 inches. 

The length of the skull from the nasal 

process of the frontal over the 

vertex to the superior semicircular 

lines of the occipital measures . 303 (300) = 12 "0." 

1 This, Mr. Busk has pointed out, is probably the notch for 
the frontal nerve. 

2 The numbers in brackets are those which I should assign to 
the different measures, as taken from the plaster cast. — G. B. 



172 HUMAN FOSSILS m 

mm. inches. 

Circumference over the orbital ridges 

and the superior semicircular lines 

of the occipital 590 (590) = 23 '37" or 23". 

Width of the frontal from the middle 

of the temporal line on one side to 

the same point on the opposite. . 104 (114) = 4*1" — 4*5". 
Length of the frontal from the nasal 

process to the coronal suture. . 133 (125) = 5*25" — 5". 
Extreme width of the frontal sinuses 25 (23) = 1*0" — 0*9". 
Vertical height above a line joining 

the deepest notches in the squamous 

border of the parietals 70 = 2*75". 

Width of hinder part of skull from 

one parietal protuberance to the 

other 138 (150) = 5 "4" —5 '9". 

Distance from the upper angle of the 

occipital to the superior semicir- 
cular lines 51 (60) = 1-9"— 2*4". 

Thickness of the bone at the parietal 

protuberance 8. 

at the angle of the occipital 9. 

at the superior semicircular 

line of the occipital ...... 10 = 03". 

"Besides the cranium, the following bones have been se- 
cured :— 

"1. Both thigh-bones, perfect. These, like the skull, and all 
the other bones, are characterized by their unusual thickness, 
and the great development of all the elevations and depressions 
for the attachment of muscles. In the Anatomical Museum at 
Bonn, under the designation of 'Giant's -bones,' are some recent 
thigh-bones, with which in thickness the foregoing pretty nearly 
correspond, although they are shorter. 

Giant's bones. Fossil "bones. 

mm. inches. mm. inches. 

Length 542 = 21 '4" ... 438 = 17 "4". 

Diameter of head of femur 54 = 214" ... 53 = 2'0", 



HI THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 173 

Giant's bones. Fossil bones, 
mm. inches, mm. inches 
Diameter of lower articular end, 
from one condyle to the 

other 89 = 3*5" ... 87 = 3'4". 

Diameter of femur in the middle . 33 = 1*2" ... 30 = ll". 

"2. A perfect right humerus, whose size shows that it belongs 
to the thigh-bones. 

mm. inches. 

Length 312 = 12*3 '. 

Thickness in the middle ... 26 = 1 •()". 
Diameter of head 49 = 1 '9". 

u Also a perfect right radius of corresponding dimensions and 
the upper-third of a right ulna corresponding to the humerus 
and radius. 

" 3. A left humerus, of which the upper-third is wanting, and 
which is so much slenderer than the right as apparently to belong 
to a distinct individual ; a left iclna, which, though complete, is 
pathologically deformed, the coronoid process being so much 
enlarged by bony growth, that flexure of the elbow beyond a 
right angle must have been impossible ; the anterior fossa of the 
humerus for the reception of the coronoid process being also 
filled up with a similar bony growth. At the same time, the 
olecranon is curved strongly downwards. As the bone presents 
no sign of rachitic degeneration, it may be supposed that an 
injury sustained during life was the cause of the anchylosis. 
When the left ulna is compared with the right radius, it might 
at first sight be concluded that the bones respectively belonged 
to different individuals, the ulna being more than half an inch 
too short for articulation with a corresponding radius. But it 
is clear that this shortening, as well as the attenuation of the 
left humerus, are both consequent upon the pathological condi- 
tion above described. 

" 4. A left ilium, almost perfect, and belonging to the femur ; 
a fragment of the right scapula ; the anterior extremity of a rib 
of the right side ; and the same part of a rib of the left side ; 
the hinder part of a rib of the right side ; and, lastly, two 



174? HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



hinder portions and one middle portion of ribs which, from their 
unusually rounded shape, and abrupt curvature, more resemble 
the ribs of a carnivorous animal than those of a man. Dr. H. v. 
Meyer, however, to whose judgment I defer, will not venture to 
declare them to be ribs of any animal ; and it only remains to 
suppose that this abnormal condition has arisen from an un- 
usually powerful development of the thoracic muscles. 

" The bones adhere strongly to the tongue, although, as proved 
by the use of hydrochloric acid, the greater part of the cartilage 
is still retained in them, which appears, however, to have under- 
gone that transformation into gelatine which has been observed 
by v. Bibra in fossil bones. The surface of all the bones is 
in many spots covered with minute black specks, which, more 
especially under a lens, are seen to be formed of very delicate 
dendrites. These deposits, which were first observed on the 
bones by Dr. Mayer, are most distinct on the inner surface of the 
cranial bones. They consist of a ferruginous compound, and, 
from their black colour, maybe supposed to contain manganese. 
Similar dendritic formations also occur, not unfrequently, on 
laminated rocks, and are usually found in minute fissures and 
cracks. At the meeting of the Lower Rhine Society at Bonn, 
on the 1st April, 1857, Prof. Mayer stated that he had noticed 
in the museum of Poppelsdorf similar dendritic crystallizations 
on several fossil bones of animals, and particularly on those of 
Ursus spelceus, but still more abundantly and beautifully dis- 
played on the fossil bones and teeth of Equus adamiticus, 
Elephas primigenius, &c, from the caves of Bolve and Sundwig. 
Faint indications of similar dendrites were visible in a Roman 
skull from Siegburg ; whilst other ancient skulls, which had 
lain for centuries in the earth, presented no trace of them. 1 I 
am indebted to H. v. Meyer for the following remarks on this 
subject : — 

" 'The incipient formation of dendritic deposits, which were 
formerly regarded as a sign of a truly fossil condition, is in- 
teresting. It has even been supposed that in diluvial deposits 

1 Verh. des Nalurhist. Yereins in Bonn, xiv. 1857. 



HI THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 175 

the presence of dendrites might be regarded as affording a certain 
mark of distinction between bones mixed with the diluvium 
at a somewhat later period and the true diluvial relics, to which 
alone it was supposed that these deposits were confined. But 
I have long been convinced that neither can the absence of 
dendrites be regarded as indicative of recent age, nor their 
presence as sufficient to establish the great antiquity of the 
objects upon which they occur. I have myself noticed upon 
paper, which could scarcely be more than a year old, dendritic 
deposits, which could not be distinguished from those on fossil 
bones. Thus I possess a dog's skull from the Roman colony of 
the neighbouring Heddersheim, Castrum Hadrianum, which is 
in no way distinguishable from the fossil bones from the 
Frankish caves ; it presents the same colour, and adheres to 
the tongue just as they do ; so that this character also, 
which, at a former meeting of German naturalists at Bonn, 
gave rise to amusing scenes between Buckland and Schmerling, 
is no longer of any value. In disputed cases, therefore, the 
condition of the bone can scarcely afford the means for deter- 
mining with certainty whether it be fossil, that is to say, 
whether it belong to geological antiquity or to the historical 
period. ' 

"Aswe cannot now look upon the primitive world as repre- 
senting a wholly different condition of things, from which no 
transition exists to the organic life of the present time, the 
designation of fossil, as applied to a bone, has no longer the 
sense it conveyed in the time of Cuvier. Sufficient grounds 
exist for the assumption that man coexisted with the animals 
found in the diluvium ; and many a barbarous race may, before 
all historical time, have disappeared, together with the animals 
of the ancient world, whilst the races whose organization is 
improved have continued the genus. The bones which form 
the subject of this paper present characters which, although 
not decisive as regards a geological epoch, are, nevertheless, 
such as indicate a very high antiquity. It may also be remarked 
that, common as is the occurrence of diluvial animal bones in 
the muddy deposits of caverns, such remains have not hitherto 



176 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



been met with in the caves of the Neanderthal ; and that the 
bones, which were covered by a deposit of mud not more than 
four or five feet thick, and without an)' protective covering of 
stalagmite, have retained the greatest part of their organic 
substance. 

" These circumstances might be adduced against the proba- 
bility of a geological antiquity. Nor should we be justified in 
regarding the cranial conformation as perhaps representing the 
most savage primitive type of the human race, since crania 
exist among living savages, which, though not exhibiting such 
a remarkable conformation of the forehead, which gives the 
skull somewhat the aspect of that of the large apes, still in 
other respects, as for instance in the greater depth of the tem- 
poral fossae, the crest-like, prominent temporal ridges, and a 
generally less capacious cranial cavity, exhibit an equally low 
stage of development. There is no reason for supposing that 
the deep frontal hollow is due to any artificial flattening, such 
as is practised in various modes by barbarous nations in the 
Old and New World. The skull is quite symmetrical, and 
shows no indication of counter-pressure at the occiput, whilst, 
according to Morton, in the Flat-heads of the Columbia, the 
frontal and parietal bones are always un symmetrical. Its con- 
formation exhibits the sparing development of the anterior part 
of the head which has been so often observed in very ancient 
crania, and affords one of the most striking proofs of the 
influence of culture and civilization on the form of the human 
skull." 

In a subsequent passage, Dr. Schaaffhausen 
remarks : 

" There is no reason whatever for regarding the unusual 
development of the frontal sinuses in the remarkable skull from 
the Neanderthal as an individual or pathological deformity ; it 
is unquestionably a typical race -character, and is physiologically 
connected with the uncommon thickness of the other bones of 
the skeleton, which exceeds by about one-half the usual pro- 
portions. This expansion of the frontal sinuses, which are 



Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 177 

appendages of the air-passages, also indicates an unusual force 
and power of endurance in the movements of the body, as may 
be concluded from the size of all the ridges and processes for 
the attachment of the muscles or bones. That this conclusion 
may be drawn from the existence of large frontal sinuses, and a 
prominence of the lower frontal region, is confirmed in many 
ways by other observations. By the same characters, according 
to Pallas, the wild horse is distinguished from the domesticated, 
and, according to Cuvier, the fossil cave-bear from every recent 
species of bear, whilst, according to Roulin, the pig, which has 
become wild in America, and regained a resemblance to the 
wild boar, is thus distinguished from the same animal in the 
domesticated state, as is the chamois from the goat ; and, lastly, 
the bull-dog, which is characterised by its large bones and 
strongly-developed muscles from every other kind of dog. The 
estimation of the facial angle, the determination of which, 
according to Professor Owen, is also difficult in the great apes, 
owing to the very prominent supra-orbital ridges, in the present 
case is rendered still more difficult from the absence both of the 
auditory opening and of the nasal spine. But if the proper 
horizontal position of the skull be taken from the remaining 
portions of the orbital plates, and the ascending line made to 
touch the surface of the frontal bone behind the prominent 
supra-orbital ridges, the facial angle is not found to exceed 56°. 1 
Unfortunately, no portions of the facial bones, whose conforma- 
tion is so decisive as regards the form and expression of the 
head, have been preserved. The cranial capacity, compared 
with the uncommon strength of the corporeal frame, would seem 
to indicate a small cerebral development. The skull, as it is, 
holds about 31 ounces of millet-seed ; and as, from the propor- 
tionate size of the wanting bones, the whole cranial cavity 
should have about 6 ounces more added, the contents, were it 
perfect, may be taken at 37 ounces. Tiedemann assigns, as the 
cranial contents in the Negro, 40, 38, and 35 ounces. The 
cranium holds rather more than 36 ounces of water which 

1 Estimating the facial angle in the way suggested, on the 
cast I should place it at 64° to 67°. — G. B. 

176 



178 HUMAN FOSSILS m 

corresponds to a capacity of 1033 "24 cubic centimetres. Huschke 
estimates the cranial contents of a Negress at 1127 cubic centi- 
metres ; of an old Negro at 1146 cubic centimetres. The 
capacity of the Malay skulls, estimated by water, equalled 36, 
33 ounces, whilst in the diminutive Hindoos it falls to as little 
as 27 ounces." 

After comparing the Neanderthal cranium with 
many others, ancient and modern, Professor 
Schaaffhausen concludes thus : — 

"But the human bones and cranium from the Neanderthal 
exceed all the rest in those peculiarities of conformation which 
lead to the conclusion of their belonging to a barbarous and 
savage race. "Whether the cavern in which they were found, 
unaccompanied with any trace of human art, were the place of 
their interment, or whether, like the bones of extinct animals 
elsewhere, they had been washed into it, they may still be re- 
garded as the most ancient memorial of the early inhabitants of 
Europe. " 

Mr. Busk, the translator of Dr. Schaaffhausen's 
paper, has enabled us to form a very vivid con- 
ception of the degraded character of the Nean- 
derthal skull, by placing side by side with its out- 
line, that of the skull of a Chimpanzee, drawn to 
the same absolute size. 

Some time after the publication of the trans- 
lation of Professor Schaaffhausen's Memoir, I was 
led to study the cast of the Neanderthal cranium 
with more attention than I had previously 
bestowed upon it, in consequence of wishing to 
supply Sir Charles Lyell with a diagram, exhibiting 
the special peculiarities of this skull, as compared 



Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 179 

with other human skulls. In order to do this it 
was necessary to identify, with precision, those 
points in the skulls compared which corresponded 
anatomically. Of these points, the glabella was 
obvious enough ; but when I had distinguished 
another, defined by the occipital protuberance and 
superior semi-circular line, and had placed the 
outline of the Neanderthal skull against that of 
the Engis skull, in such a position that the 
glabella and occipital protuberance of both were 
intersected by the same straight line, the difference 
was so vast and the flattening of the Neanderthal 
skull so prodigious (compare Figs. 23 and 25 A), 
that I at first imagined I must have fallen into 
some error. And I was the more inclined to sus- 
pect this, as, in ordinary human skulls, the 
occipital protuberance and superior semicircular 
curved line on the exterior of the occiput corre- 
spond pretty closely with the " lateral sinuses " and 
the line of attachment of the tentorium internally. 
But on the tentorium rests, as I have said in the 
preceding Essay, the posterior lobe of the brain ; 
and hence, the occipital protuberance, and the 
curved line in question, indicate, approximately, 
the lower limits of that lobe. Was it possible for 
a human being to have the brain thus flattened 
and depressed ; or, on the other hand, had the 
muscular ridges shifted their position ? In order 
to solve these doubts, and to decide the question 
whether the great supraciliary projections did, or 



180 



HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 




FiOx. 25.— The skull from the Neanderthal cavern. A, side, 
outlines from camera lucida drawings, one half the natural. size[ 
photographs, a glabella ; b occipital protuberance ; d lamb- 
did not, arise from the development of the frontal 
sinuses, I requested Sir Charles Lyell to be so 
good as to obtain for me from Dr. Fuhlrott, 



Ill 



THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 



181 



the possessor of the skull, answers to certain 
queries, and if possible a cast, or at any rate 
drawings, or photographs, of the interior of the 
skull. 

Dr. Fuhlrott replied, with a courtesy and 







B, front, and C, top view. One half the natural size. The 
by Mr. Busk : the details from the cast and from Dr. Fuhlrott's 
doidal suture. 



readiness for which I am infinitely indebted to 
him, to my inquiries, and furthermore sent three 
excellent photographs. One of these gives a side 



182 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



view of the skull, and from it Fig. 25 A has been 
shaded. The second (Fig. 26 A) exhibits the 
wide openings of the frontal sinuses upon the 
inferior surface of the frontal part of the skull, 
into which, Dr. Fuhlrott writes, " a probe may be 
introduced to the depth of an inch/' and demon- 
strates the great extension of the thickened 
supraciliary ridges beyond the cerebral cavity. 
The third, lastly (Fig. 26 B), exhibits the edge 
and the interior of the posterior, or occipital, part 
of the skull, and shows very clearly the two 
depressions for the lateral sinuses, sweeping 
inwards towards the middle line of the roof of the 
skull, to form the longitudinal sinus. It was clear, 
therefore, that I had not erred in my interpre- 
tation, and that the posterior lobe of the brain of 
the Neanderthal man must have been as much 
flattened as I suspected it to be. 

In truth, the Neanderthal cranium has most 
extraordinary characters. It has an extreme 
length of 8 inches, while its breadth is only 5*75 
inches, or, in other words, its length is to its 
breadth as 100 : 72. It is exceedingly depressed, 
measuring only about 3*4 inches from the glabello- 
occipital line to the vertex. The longitudinal arc, 
measured in the same way as in the Engis skull, 
is 12 inches; the transverse arc cannot be exactly 
ascertained, in consequence of the absence of the 
temporal bones, but was probably about the same, 
and certainly exceeded 10 \ inches. The hori- 



Ill 



THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 



183 



zontal circumference is 23 inches. But this great 
circumference arises largely from the vast de- 





Fig. 26. — Drawings from Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs of parts of 
the interior of the Neanderthal cranium, A view of the under 
and inner surface of the frontal region, showing the inferior 
apertures of the frontal sinuses (a). B corresponding view of 
the occipital region of the skull, showing the impressions of the 
lateral sinuses (aa). 



velopment of the supraciliary ridges, though the 
perimeter of the brain case itself is not small. 



18* HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



The large supraciliary ridges give the forehead a 
far more retreating appearance than its internal 
contour would bear out. 

To an anatomical eye, the posterior part of the 
skull is even more striking than the anterior. 
The occipital protuberance occupies the extreme 
posterior end of the skull, when the glabello- 
occipital line is made horizontal, and so far from 
any part of the occipital region extending beyond 
it, this region of the skull slopes obliquely upward 
and forward, so that the lambdoidal suture is 
situated well upon the upper surface of the 
cranium. At the same time, notwithstanding the 
great length of the skull, the sagittal suture is 
remarkably short (4| inches), and the squamosal 
suture is very straight. 

In reply to my questions Dr. Fuhlrott writes 
that the occipital bone " is in a state of perfect 
preservation as far as the upper semicircular line, 
which is a very strong ridge, linear at its ex- 
tremities, but enlarging towards the middle, where 
it forms two ridges (bourrelets), united by a linear 
continuation, which is slightly depressed in the 
middle." 

" Below the left ridge the bone exhibits an 
obliquely inclined surface, six lines (French) long, 
and twelve lines wide." 

This last must be the surface, the contour of 
which is shown in Fig. 25 A, below b. It is 
particularly interesting, as it suggests that, 



Ill 



THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 185 



notwithstanding the flattened condition of the 
occiput, the posterior cerebral lobes must have 
projected considerably beyond the cerebellum, 
and as it constitutes one among several points of 
similarity between the Neanderthal cranium and 
certain Australian skulls. 

Such are the two best known forms of human 
cranium, which have been found in what may be 
fairly termed a fossil state. Can either be shown 
to fill up or diminish, to any appreciable extent, 
the structural interval which exists between Man 
and the man-like apes ? Or, on the other hand, 
does neither depart more widely from the average 
structure of the human cranium, than normally 
formed skulls of men are known to do at the 
present day ? 

It is impossible to form any opinion on these 
questions, without some preliminary acquaintance 
with the range of variation exhibited by human 
structure in general — a subject which has been 
but imperfectly studied, while even of what is 
known, my limits will necessarily allow me to give 
only a very imperfect sketch. 

The student of anatomy is perfectly well aware 
that there is not a single organ of the human 
body the structure of which does not vary, to a 
greater or less extent, in different individuals. 
The skeleton varies in the proportions, and even 
to a certain extent in the connexions, of its con- 



186 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



stituent bones. The muscles which move the 
bones vary largely in their attachments. The 
varieties in the mode of distribution of the 
arteries are carefully classified, on account of the 
practical importance of a knowledge of their 
shiftings to the surgeon. The characters of the 
brain vary immensely, nothing being less constant 
than the form and size of the cerebral hemispheres, 
and the richness of the convolutions upon their 
surface, while the most changeable structures of 
all in the human brain are exactly those on which 
the unwise attempt has been made to base the 
distinctive characters of humanity, viz. the pos- 
terior cornu of the lateral ventricle, the hippo- 
campus minor, and the degree of projection of the 
posterior lobe beyond the cerebellum. Finally, 
as all the world knows, the hair and skin of human 
beings may present the most extraordinary diver- 
sities in colour and in texture. 

So far as our present knowledge goes, the majority 
of the structural varieties to which allusion is 
here made, are individual. The ape-like ar- 
rangement of certain muscles which is occasion- 
ally met with 1 in the white races of mankind, is 
not known to be more common among Negroes 
or Australians : nor because the brain of the 
Hottentot Venus was found to be smoother, to 
have its convolutions more symmetrically disposed, 

1 See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the Myology of 
the Orang, in the Natural History Revieiv for 1861. 










Fig. 27. — Side and front views of the round and orthognathous 
skull of a Calmuck after Von Baer. One- third the natural size. 



188 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



and to be, so far, more ape-like than that of 
ordinary Europeans, are we justified in concluding 
a like condition of the brain to prevail universally 
among the lower races of mankind, however 
probable that conclusion may be. 

We are, in fact, sadly wanting in information 
respecting the disposition of the soft and de- 
structible organs of every Race of Mankind but 
our own ; and even of the skeleton, our Museums 
are lamentably deficient in every part but the 
cranium. Skulls enough there are, and since the 
time when Blumenbach and Camper first called 
attention to the marked and singular differences 
which they exhibit, skull collecting and skull 
measuring has been a zealously pursued branch of 
Natural History, and the results obtained have 
been arranged and classified by various writers, 
among whom the late active and able Retzius 
must always be the first named. 

Human skulls have been found to differ from 
one another, not merely in their absolute size and 
in the absolute capacity of the brain case, but in 
the proportions which the diameters of the latter 
bear to one another; in the relative size of 
the bones of the face (and more particularly 
of the jaws and teeth) as compared with those of 
the skull ; in the degree to which the upper jaw 
(which is of course followed by the lower) is thrown 
backwards and downwards under the forepart of 
the brain case, or forwards and upwards in front of 






HI VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULL 189 

and beyond it. They differ further in the relations 
of the transverse diameter of the face, taken through 
the cheek bones, to the transverse diameter of the 
skull; in the more rounded or more gable-like 
form of the roof of the skull, and in the degree to 
which the hinder part of the skull is flattened or 
projects beyond the ridge, into and below which 
the muscles of the neck are inserted. 

In some skulls the brain case may be said to be 
"round" the extreme length not exceeding the 
extreme breadth by a greater proportion than 100 
to 80, while the difference may be much less. 1 
Men possessing such skulls were termed by 
Retzius " br achy cephalic" and the skull of a 
Calmuck, of which a front and side view (reduced 
outline copies of which are given in Figure 27) are 
depicted by Von Baer in his excellent " Crania 
selecta," affords a very admirable sample of that 
kind of skull. Other skulls, such as that of a 
Negro copied in Fig. 28 from Mr. Busk's " Crania 
typica," have a very different, greatly elongated 
form, and may be termed " oblong" In this skull 
the extreme length is to the extreme breadth as 
100 to not more than 67, and the transverse 
diameter of the human skull may fall below even 
this proportion. People having such skulls were 
called by Retzius "dolichocephalic" 

The most cursory glance at the side views of 

1 In no normal human skull does the breadth of the brain- 
case exceed its length. 




Fig. 28. — Oblong and prognathous skull of a Negro ; side and 
front views. One-third of the natural size. 



Ill VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULL 191 

these two skulls will suffice to prove that they 
differ, in another respect, to a very striking extent. 
The profile of the face of the Calmuck is almost 
vertical, the facial bones being thrown downwards 
and under the fore part of the skull. The 
profile of the face of the Negro, on the other hand, 
is singularly inclined, the front part of the jaws 
projecting far forward beyond the level of the fore 
part of the skull. In the former case the skull is 
said to be " orthognathous" or straight-jawed; in 
the latter, it is called "prognathous" a term which 
has been rendered, with more force than elegance, 
by the Saxon equivalent, — "snouty." 

Various methods have been devised in order to 
express with some accuracy the degree of prog- 
nathism or orthognathism of any given skull; 
most of these methods being essentially modifica- 
tions of that devised by Peter Camper, in order to 
attain what he called the " facial angle/' 

But a little consideration will show that any 
" facial angle " that has been devised, can be com- 
petent to express the structural modifications 
involved in prognathism and orthognathism, only 
in a rough and general sort of way. For the 
lines, the intersection of which forms the facial 
angle, are drawn through points of the skull, the 
position of each of which is modified by a number 
of circumstances, so that the angle obtained is a 
complex resultant of all these circumstances, and 
is not the expression of any one definite organic 
relation of the parts of the skull. 



192 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



I have arrived at the conviction that no com- 
parison of crania is worth very much that is not 
founded upon the establishment of a relatively 
fixed base line, to which the measurements, in all 
cases, must be referred. Nor do I think it is a 
very difficult matter to decide what that base line 
should be. The parts of the skull, like those of 
the rest of the animal framework, are developed 
in succession : the base of the skull is formed 
before its sides and roof; it is converted into 
cartilage earlier and more completely than the 
sides and roof: and the cartilaginous base ossifies, 
and becomes soldered into one piece long before 
the roof. I conceive then that the base of the 
skull may be demonstrated developmentally to be 
its relatively fixed part, the roof and sides being 
relatively movable. 

The same truth is exemplified by the study of 
the modifications which the skull undergoes in 
ascending from the lower animals up to man. 

In such a mammal as a Beaver (Fig. 29), a line 
{a V) drawn through the bones, termed basiocci- 
pital, basisphenoid, and presphenoid, is very long 
in proportion to the extreme length of the cavity 
which contains the cerebral hemispheres {g h). 
The plane of the occipital foramen (b c) forms a 
slightly acute angle with this " basicranial axis," 
while the plane of the tentorium (i T) is inclined 
at rather more than 90° to the " basicranial axis " ; 
and so is the plane of the perforated plate (a d), 
by which the filaments of the olfactory nerve 






Becruer, 



Lemur. 




Fig. 29. — Longitudinal and vertical sections of the skulls of 
a Beaver (Castor Canadensis), & Lemur (L. Catta), and a Baboon 
(Cynocephahis Papio), a b, the basicranial axis ; b c, the occipital 
plane ; i T, the tentorial plane ; a d, the olfactory plane ; / e, 
the basifacial axis ; cba, occipital angle ;.Tia, tentorial angle ; 
dab, olfactory angle ; efb, cranio -facial angle ; g h, extreme 
length of the cavity which lodges the cerebral hemispheres or 
" cerebral length." The length of the basicranial axis as to this 
length, or, in other words, the proportional length of the line 
g h to that of a b taken as 100, in the three skulls, is as 

111 



/ 



194 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



follows :— Beaver, 70 to 100 ; Lemur, 119 to 100 ; Baboon, 144 
to 100. In an adult male Gorilla the cerebral length is as 170 
to the basicranial axis taken as 100, in the Negro (Fig. 30) as 
236 to 100. In the Constantinople skull (Fig. 30) it is as 266 
to 100. The difference between the highest Ape's skull and the 
lowest Man's is therefore very strikingly brought out by these 
measurements. 

In the diagram of the Baboon's skull the dotted lines d 1 cl 2 , 
&c, give the angles of the Lemur's and Beaver's skull, as laid 
down upon the basicranial axis of the Baboon. The line a b has 
the same length in each diagram. 



leave the skull. Again, a line drawn through the 
axis of the face, between the bones called ethmoid 
and vomer — the " basifacial axis " (/. e.) forms an 
exceedingly obtuse angle, where, when produced, 
it cuts the " basicranial axis." 

If the angle made by the line b c with a b, be 
called the " occipital angle," and the angle made 
by the line a d with a b be termed the " olfactory 
angle" and that made by i T with a b the 
"tentorial angle" then all these, in the mammal 
in question, are nearly right angles, varying 
between 80° and 110°. The angle e f b, or that 
made by the cranial with the facial axis, and 
which may be termed the " cranio-facial angle," is 
extremely obtuse, amounting, in the case of the 
Beaver, to at least 150°. 

But if a series of sections of mammalian skulls, 
intermediate between a Rodent and a Man (Fig. 
29), be examined, it will be found that in the 
higher crania the basi-cranial axis becomes shorter 
relatively to the cerebral length ; that the " olfac- 



Ill 



MAMMALIAN SKULLS 195 



tory angle p and " occipital angle " become more 
obtuse; and that the " cranio-facial angle," be- 
comes more acute by the bending down, as it 
were, of the facial axis upon the cranial axis. At 
the same time, the roof of the cranium becomes 
more and more arched, to allow of the increasing 
height of the cerebral hemispheres, which is 
eminently characteristic of man, as well as of that 
backward extension, beyond the cerebellum, which 
reaches its maximum in the South American Mon- 
keys. So that, at last, in the human skull (Fig. 
30), the cerebral length is between twice and 
thrice as great as the length of the basicranial 
axis ; the olfactory plane is 20° or 30° on the under 
side of that axis ; the occipital angle, instead of 
being less than 90°, is as much as 150° or 160° ; the 
cranio-facial angle may be 90° or less, and the 
vertical height of the skull may have a large 
proportion to its length. 

It will be obvious, from an inspection of the 
diagrams, that the basicranial axis is, in the 
ascending series of Mammalia, a relatively fixed 
line, on which the bones of the sides and roof of 
the cranial cavity, and of the face, may be said to 
revolve downwards and forwards or backwards, 
according to their position. The arc described by 
any one bone or plane, however, is not by any 
means always in proportion to the arc described 
by another. 

Now comes the important question, can we 




Fig. 30. — Sections of orthognathous (light contour) and prog- 
nathous (dark contour) skulls, one-third of the natural size, ab, 
Basicranial axis ; b c, b' c', plane of the occipital foramen ; d d' 9 
hinder end of the palatine bone ; e e' 9 front end of the upper 
jaw ; T T'j insertion of the tentorium. 



Ill VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULLS 197 

discern, between the lowest and the highest forms 
of the human cranium anything answering, in 
however slight a degree, to this revolution of the 
side and roof bones of the skull upon the basi- 
cranial axis observed upon so great a scale in the 
mammalian series ? Numerous observations lead 
me to believe that we must answer this question 
in the affirmative. 

The diagrams in Figure 30 are reduced from 
very carefully made diagrams of sections of four 
skulls, two round and orthognathous, two long and 
prognathous, taken longitudinally and vertically, 
through the middle. The sectional diagrams have 
then been superimposed, in such a manner, that 
the basal axes of the skulls coincide by their 
anterior ends, and in their direction. The devia- 
tions of the rest of the contours (which represent 
the interior of the skulls only) show the differ- 
ences of the skulls from one another, when these 
axes are regarded as relatively fixed lines. 

The dark contours are those of an Australian 
and of a Negro skull : the light contours are 
those of a Tartar skull, in the Museum of the 
Royal College of Surgeons; and of a well 
developed round skull from a cemetery in 
Constantinople, of uncertain race, in my own 
possession. 

It appears, at once, from these views, that the 
prognathous skulls, so far as their jaws are con- 
cerned, do really differ from the orthognathous in 



198 HUMAN FOSSILS in 

much the same way as, though to a far less degree 
than, the skulls of the lower mammals differ from 
those of Man. Furthermore, the plane of the 
occipital foramen (b c) forms a somewhat smaller 
angle with the axis in these particular prognathous 
skulls than in the orthognathous ; and the like 
may be slightly true of the perforated plate of the 
ethmoid — though this point is not so clear. But 
it is singular to remark that, in another respect, 
the prognathous skulls are less ape-like than the 
orthognathous, the cerebral cavity projecting de- 
cidedly more beyond the anterior end of the axis 
in the prognathous, than in the orthognathous, 
skulls. 

It will be observed that these diagrams reveal 
an immense range of variation in the capacity and 
relative proportion to the cranial axis, of the 
different regions of the cavity which contains the 
brain, in the different skulls. Nor is the differ- 
ence in the extent to which the cerebral overlaps 
the cerebellar cavity less singular. A round 
skull (Fig. 30, Const.) may have a greater posterior 
cerebral projection than a long one (Fig. 30, 
Negro). 

Until human crania have been largely worked 
out in a manner similar to that here suggested — 
until it shall be an opprobrium to an ethnological 
collection to possess a single skull which is not 
bisected longitudinally — until the angles and 
measurements here mentioned, together with a 



Ill VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULLS 199 

number of others of which I cannot speak in 
this place, are determined, and tabulated with 
reference to the basicranial axis as unity, for large 
numbers of skulls of the different races of Mankind, 
I do not think we shall have any very safe basis 
for that ethnological craniology which aspires to 
give the anatomical characters of the crania of the 
different Races of Mankind. 

At present, I believe that the general outlines 
of what may be safely said upon that subject may 
be summed up in a very few words. Draw a line 
on a globe, from the Gold Coast in Western Africa 
to the steppes of Tartary. At the southern and 
western end of that line there live the most 
dolichocephalic, prognathous, curly -haired, dark- 
skinned of men — the true Negroes. At the 
northern and eastern end of the same line there 
live the most brachycephalic, orthognathous, 
straight-haired,yellow-skinned of men — the Tartars 
and Cal mucks. The two ends of this imaginary 
line are indeed, so to speak, ethnological antipodes. 
A line drawn at right angles, or nearly so, to this 
polar line through Europe and Southern Asia to 
Hindostan, would give us a sort of equator, around 
which round-headed, oval-headed, and oblong- 
headed, prognathous and orthognathous, fair and 
dark races — but none possessing the excessively 
marked characters of Calmuck or Negro — group 
themselves. 

It is worthy of notice that the regions of the 



200 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



6 



antipodal races are antipodal in climate, the 
greatest contrast the world affords, perhaps, being 
that between the damp, hot, steaming, alluvial 
coast plains of the West Coast of Africa and the 
arid, elevated steppes and plateaux of Central Asia, 
bitterly cold in winter, and as far from the sea as 
any part of the world can be. 

From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific 
Islands and subcontinents on the one hand, and to 
America on the other, brachycephaly and orthog- 
nathism gradually diminish, and are replaced by 
dolichocephaly and prognathism, less, however, on 
the American Continent (throughout the whole 
length of which a rounded type of skull prevails 
largely, but not exclusively) 1 than in the Pacific 
region, where, at length, on the Australian Con- 
tinent and in the adjacent islands, the oblong 
skull, the projecting jaws, and the dark skin re- 
appear ; with so much departure, in other respects, 
from the Negro type, that ethnologists assign to 
these people the special title of " Negritoes." 

The Australian skull is remarkable for its 
narrowness and for the thickness of its walls, 
especially in the region of the supraciliary ridge, 
which is frequently, though not by any means 
invariably, solid throughout, the frontal sinuses re- 
maining undeveloped. The nasal depression, 

1 See Dr. D. Wilson's valuable paper "On the supposed 
prevalence of one Cranial Type throughout the Aniericau 
Aborigines." — Canadian Joicrnal, Vol. II. 1857. 



Ill AUSTKALIAN SKULLS 201 

again, is extremely sudden, so that the brows over- 
hang and give the countenance a particularly 
lowering, threatening expression. The occipital 
region of the skull, also, not unfrequently becomes 
less prominent ; so that it not only fails to project 
beyond a line drawn perpendicular to the hinder 
extremity of the glabello-occipital line, but even, in 
some cases, begins to shelve away from it, forwards, 
almost immediately. In consequence of this cir- 
cumstance, the parts of the occipital bone which lie 
above and below the tuberosity make a much 
more acute angle with one another than is usual, 
whereby the hinder part of the base of the skull 
appears obliquely truncated. Many Australian 
skulls have a considerable height, quite equal to 
that of the average of any other race, but there 
are others in which the cranial roof becomes re- 
markably depressed, the skull, at the same time, 
elongating so much that, probably, its capacity is 
not diminished. The majority of skulls possessing 
these characters, which I have seen, are from the 
neighbourhood of Port Adelaide in South Australia, 
and have been used by the natives as water 
vessels ; to which end the face has been knocked 
away, and a string passed through the vacuity and 
the occipital foramen, so that the skull was sus- 
pended by the greater part of its basis. 

Figure 31 represents the contour of a skull of 
this kind from Western Port, with the jaw 
attached, and of the Neanderthal skull, both 



202 



HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



reduced to one-third of the size of nature. A small 
additional amount of flattening and lengthening, 
with a corresponding increase of the supraciliary 




Fig. 31. — An Australian skull from Western Port, in the 
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, with the contour 
of the Neanderthal skull. Both reduced to one-third the 
natural size. 



ridge, would convert the Australian brain case 
into a form identical with that of the aberrant 
fossil. 



And now, to return to the fossil skulls, and to 
the rank which they occupy among, or beyond, 



Ill 



THE FOSSIL SKULLS 203 



these existing varieties of cranial conformation. In 
the first place, I must remark, that, as Professor 
Schmerling well observed (supra, p. 161) in com- 
menting upon the Engis skull, the formation of a 
safe judgment upon the question is greatly 
hindered by the absence of the jaws from both the 
crania, so that there is no means of deciding, with 
certainty, whether they were more or less prog- 
nathous than the lower existing races of mankind. 
And yet, as we have seen, it is more in this respect 
than any other, that human skulls vary, towards 
and from, the brutal type — the brain case of an 
average dolichocephalic European differing far less 
from that of a Negro, for example, than his jaws 
do. In the absence of the jaws, then, any 
judgment on the relations of the fossil skulls to 
recent Races must be accepted with a certain 
reservation. 

But taking the evidence as it stands, and 
turning first to the Engis skull, I confess I can 
find no character in the remains of that cranium 
which, if it were a recent skull, would give any 
trustworthy clue as to the Race to which it might 
appertain. Its contours and measurements agree 
very well with those of some Australian skulls 
which I have examined — and especially has it a 
tendency towards that occipital flattening, to the 
great extent of which, in some Australian skulls, I 
have alluded. But all Australian skulls do not 
present this flattening, and the supraciliary ridge 



204 HUMAN FOSSILS m 

of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of the 
typical Australians. 

On the other hand, its measurements agree 
equally well with those of some European skulls. 
And assuredly, there is no mark of degradation 
about any part of its structure. It is, in fact, a 
fair average human skull, which might have 
belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained 
the thoughtless brains of a savage. 

The case of the Neanderthal skull is very differ- 
ent. Under whatever aspect we view this 
cranium, whether we regard its vertical depression, 
the enormous thickness of its supraciliary ridges, 
its sloping occiput, or its long and straight 
squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like charac- 
ters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of human 
crania yet discovered. But Professor Schaaff- 
hausen states (supra, p. 178), that the cranium, in 
its present condition, holds 1033'24 cubic centi- 
metres of water, or about 63 cubic inches, and as 
the entire skull could hardly have held less than 
an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity may be 
estimated at about 75 cubic inches, which is the 
average capacity given by Morton for Polynesian 
and Hottentot skulls. 

So large a mass of brain as this, would alone 
suggest that the pithecoid tendencies, indicated by 
this skull, did not extend deep into the organiza- 
tion; and this conclusion is borne out by the 
dimensions of the other bones of the skeleton 



HI PITHECOID CHARACTERS 205 

given by Professor Schaaffhausen, which show that 
the absolute height and relative proportions of the 
limbs, were quite those of an European of middle 
stature. The bones are indeed stouter, but this 
and the great development of the muscular ridges 
noted by Dr. Schaaffhausen, are characters to be 
expected in savages. The Patagonians, exposed 
without shelter or protection to a climate possibly 
not very dissimilar from that of Europe at the 
time during which the Neanderthal man lived, 
are remarkable for the stoutness of their limb 
bones. 

In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones be 
regarded as the remains of a human being inter- 
mediate between Men and Apes. At most, they 
demonstrate the existence of a Man whose skull 
may be said to revert somewhat towards the pithe- 
coid type— just as a Carrier, or a Pouter, or a 
Tumbler, may sometimes put on the plumage of 
its primitive stock, the Columba livia. And 
indeed, though truly the most pithecoid of known 
human skulls, the Neanderthal cranium is by no 
means so isolated as it appears to be at first, but 
forms, in reality, the extreme term of a series 
leading gradually from it to the highest and best 
developed of human crania. On the one hand, it 
is closely approached by the flattened Australian 
skulls, of which I have spoken, from which other 
Australian forms lead us gradually up to skulls 
having very much the type of the Engis cranium. 




Fig. 32. — Ancient Danish skull from a tumulus at Borreby ; 
one-third of the natural size. From a camera lucida drawing 
by Mr. Busk. 



Ill ANCIENT DANISH SKULLS 207 

And, on the other hand, it is even more closely 
affined to the skulls of certain ancient people who 
inhabited Denmark during the " stone period," and 
were probably either contemporaneous with, or 
later than, the makers of the " refuse heaps/' or 
" Kjokkenmbddings " of that country. 

The correspondence between the longitudinal 
contour of the Neanderthal skull and that of some 
of those skulls from the tumuli at Borreby, very 
accurate drawings of which have been made by 
Mr. Busk, is very close. The occiput is quite as 
retreating, the supraciliary ridges are nearly as 
prominent, and the skull is as low. Furthermore, 
the Borreby skull resembles the Neanderthal form 
more closely than any of the Australian skulls do, 
by the much more rapid retrocession of the fore- 
head. On the other hand, the Borreby skulls are 
all somewhat broader, in proportion to their length, 
than the Neanderthal skull, while some attain 
that proportion of breadth to length (80 : 100) 
which constitutes brachycephaly. 1 

In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains 
of Man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to 

P For a further discussion of the characters of the Neanderthal 
skull, see "Natural History Review," 1864. I there say (p. 
443) : "That the Neanderthal skull exhibits the lowest type of 
human cranium at present known, so far as it presents certain 
pithecoid characters in a more exaggerated form than any 
other : but that, inasmuch as a complete series of gradations 
can be found, among recent human skulls, between it and the 
best developed forms, there is no ground for separating its pos- 



208 HUMAN FOSSILS 



III 



take us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid 
form, by the modification of which he has, probably, 
become what he is. And considering what is now 
known of the most ancient Races of men ; seeing 
that they fashioned flint axes and flint knives and 
bone-skewers, of much the same pattern as those 
fabricated by the lowest savages at the present 
day, and that we have every reason to believe the 
habits and modes of living of such people to have 
remained the same from the time of the Mammoth 
and the tichorhine Rhinoceros till now, I do not 
know that this result is other than might be 
expected. 

Where, then, must we look for primaeval Man ? 
Was the oldest Homo sapiens pliocene or miocene, 
or yet more ancient ? In still older strata do the 
fossilized bones of an ape more anthropoid, or a 
Man more pithecoid, than any yet known await 
the researches of some unborn paleontologist ? 

Time will show. But, in the meanwhile, if any 
form of the doctrine of progressive development is 
correct, we must extend by long epochs the most 
liberal estimate that has yet been made of the 
antiquity of Man. 

sessor specifically, still less generically, from Homo sapiens. 
At present, we have no sufficient warranty for declaring it to 
be either the type of a distinct race, or a member of any existing 
one ; nor do the anatomical characters of the skull justify any 
conclusion as to the age to which it belongs." See also the 
essay on the Aryan question in this volume. 1894.] 



IV 



ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF 
ETHNOLOGY 

[1865] 

Ethnology is the science which determines 
the distinctive characters of the persistent modifi- 
cations of mankind ; which ascertains the dis- 
tribution of those modifications in present and 
past times, and seeks to discover the causes, or 
conditions of existence, both of the modifications 
and of their distribution. I say " persistent " 
modifications, because, unless incidentally, ethno- 
logy has nothing to do with chance and transitory 
peculiarities of human structure. And I speak 
of " persistent modifications " or " stocks " rather 
than of " varieties/' or " races/' or " species," 
because each of these last well-known terms 
implies, on the part of its employer, a preconceived 
opinion touching one of those problems, the 
solution of which is the ultimate object of the 
178 



210 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

science; and in regard to which, therefore, 
ethnologists are especially bound to keep their 
minds open and their judgments freely balanced. 

Ethnology, as thus defined, is a branch of 
Anthropology, the great science which un- 
ravels the complexities of human structure ; 
traces out the relations of man to other animals ; 
studies all that is especially human in the mode 
in which man's complex functions are performed ; 
and searches after the conditions which have 
determined his presence in the world. And 
anthropology is a section of Zoology, which 
again is the animal half of Biology — the science 
of life and living things. 

Such is the position of ethnology, such are the 
objects of the ethnologist. The paths or methods, 
by following which he may hope to reach his 
goal, are diverse. He may work at man from the 
point of view of the pure zoologist, and investigate 
the anatomical and physiological peculiarities of 
Negroes, Australians, or Mongolians, just as he 
would inquire into those of pointers, terriers, and 
turnspits, — " persistent modifications " of man's 
almost universal companion. Or he may seek 
aid from researches into the most human mani- 
festation of humanity — Language ; and assuming 
that what is true of speech is true of the speaker 
■ — a hypothesis as questionable in science as it is 
in ordinary life — he may apply to mankind them- 
selves the conclusions drawn from a search- 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 211 

ing analysis of their words and grammatical 
forms. 

Or, the ethnologist may turn to the study of 
the practical life of men ; and relying upon the 
inherent conservatism and small inventiveness 
of untutored mankind, he may hope to discover 
in manners and customs, or in weapons, dwellings, 
and other handiwork, a clue to the origin of the 
resemblances and differences of nations. Or, he 
may resort to that kind of evidence which is 
yielded by History proper, and consists of the 
beliefs of men concerning past events, embodied 
in traditional, or in written, testimony. Or, when 
that thread breaks, Archaeology, which is the 
interpretation of the unrecorded remains of man's 
works, belonging to the epoch since the world has 
reached its present condition, may still guide him. 
And, when even the dim light of archaeology 
fades, there yet remains Palaeontology, which, in 
these latter years, has brought to daylight once 
more the exuvia of ancient populations, whose 
world was not our world, who have been buried 
in river beds immemorially dry, or carried by the 
rush of waters into caves, inaccessible to inundation 
since the dawn of tradition. 

Along each, or all, of these paths the ethnologist 
may press towards his goal; but they are not 
equally straight, or sure, or easy to tread. The 
way of palaeontology has but just been laid open 
to us. Archaeological and historical investigations 



212 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

are of great value for all those peoples whose 
ancient state has differed widely from their present 
condition, and who have the good or evil fortune 
to possess a history. But on taking a broad 
survey of the world, it is astonishing how few 
nations present either condition. Respecting 
five-sixths of the persistent modifications of man- 
kind, history and archaeology are absolutely silent. 
For half the rest, they might as well be silent 
for anything that is to be made of their testimony. 
And, finally, when the question arises as to what 
was the condition of mankind more than a paltry 
two or three thousand years ago, history and 
archaeology are, for the most part, mere dumb 
doers. What light does either of these branches 
of knowledge throw on the past of the man of the 
New World, if we except the Central Americans 
and the Peruvians ; on that of the Africans, save 
those of the Valley of the Nile and a fringe of 
the Mediterranean ; on that of all the Polynesian, 
Australian, and central Asiatic peoples, the former 
of whom probably, and the last certainly, were, 
at the dawn of history, substantially what they 
are now ? While thankfully accepting what 
history has to give him, therefore, the ethnologist 
must not look for too much from her. 

Is more to be expected from inquiries into the 
customs and handicrafts of man ? It is to be 
feared not. In reasoning from identity of custom to 
identity of stock the difficulty always obtrudes itself, 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 213 

that the minds of men being everywhere similar, 
differing in quality and quantity but not in kind 
of faculty, like circumstances must tend to produce 
like contrivances ; at any rate, so long as the need 
to be met and conquered is of a very simple kind. 
That two nations use calabashes or shells for 
drinking-vessels, or that they employ spears, or 
clubs, or swords and axes of stone and metal as 
weapons and implements, cannot be regarded as 
evidence that these two nations had a common 
origin, or even that intercommunication ever took 
place between them ; seeing that the convenience 
of using calabashes or shells for such purposes, 
and the advantage of poking an enemy with a 
sharp stick, or hitting him with a heavy one, 
must be early forced by nature upon the mind of 
even the stupidest savage. And when he had 
found out the use of a stick, he would need no 
prompting to discover the value of a chipped or 
whetted stone, or of an angular piece of native 
metal, for the same object. On the other hand, 
it may be doubted, whether the chances are not 
greatly against independent peoples arriving at 
the manufacture of a boomerang, or of a bow ; 
which last, if one comes to think of it, is a rather 
complicated apparatus; and the tracing of the 
distribution of inventions as complex as these, 
and of such strange customs as betel-chewing and 
tobacco-smoking, may afford valuable ethnological 
hints. 



214 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

Since the time of Leibnitz, and guided by such 
men as Humboldt, Abel Remusat, and Klaproth, 
Philology has taken far higher ground. Thus 
Prichard affirms that " the history of nations, 
termed Ethnology, must be mainly founded on 
the relations of their languages." 

An eniment living philologer, August Schleicher, 
in a recent essay, puts forward the claims of his 
science still more forcibly : — 

" If, however, language is the human kclt* i^oxv^ 9 the sug- 
gestion arises whether it should not form the basis of any 
scientific systematic arrangement of mankind ; whether the 
foundation of the natural classification of the genus Homo 
has not been discovered in it. 

" How little constant are cranial peculiarities and other so- 
called race characters ! Language, on the other hand, is 
always a perfectly constant diagnostic. A German may occa- 
sionally compete in hair and prognathism with a negro, but a 
negro language will never be his mother tongue. Of how little 
importance for mankind the so-called race characters are, is 
shown by the fact that speakers of languages belonging to one 
and the same linguistic family may exhibit the peculiarities 
of various races. Thus the settled Osmanli Turk exhibits 
Caucasian characters, whilst other so-called Tartaric Turks 
exemplify the Mongol type. On the other hand, the M a gy al- 
and the Basque do not depart in any essential physical peculi- 
arity from the Indo-Germans, whilst the Magyar, Basque, and 
Indo -Germanic tongues are widely different. Apart from their 
inconstancy, again, the so-called race characters can hardly 
yield a scientifically natural system. Languages, on the other 
hand, readily fall into a natural arrangement, like that of which 
other vital products are susceptible, especially when viewed 
from their morphological side. . . . The externally visible 
structure of the cerebral and facial skeletons, and of the body 
generally, is less important than that no less material but 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 215 

infinitely more delicate corporeal structure, the function of 
which is speech. I conceive, therefore, that the natural classi- 
fication of languages, is also the natural classification of man- 
kind. With language, moreover, all the higher manifestations 
of man's vital activity are closely interwoven, so that these 
receive due recognition in and by that of speech." 1 

Without the least desire to depreciate the 
value of philology as an adjuvant to ethnology, I 
must venture to doubt, with Rudolphi, Desmoulins, 
Crawfurd, and others, its title to the leading 
position claimed for it by the writers whom I have 
just quoted. On the contrary, it seems to me 
obvious that, though, in the absence of any 
evidence to the contrary, unity of languages may 
afford a certain presumption in favour of the 
unity of stock of the peoples speaking those 
languages, it cannot be held to prove that unity 
of stock, unless philologers are prepared to demon- 
strate, that no nation can lose its language and 
acquire that of a distinct nation, without a change 
of blood corresponding with the change of language. 
Desmoulins long ago put this argument exceed- 
ingly well : — 

" Let us imagine the recurrence of one of those slow, 01 
sudden, political revolutions, or say of those secular changes 
which among different people and at different epochs have 
annihilated historical monuments and even extinguished tradi- 
tion. In that case, the evidence, now so clear, that the negroes 
of Hayti were slaves imported by a French colony, who, by the 

1 August Schleicher. Ueber die Bedmctiovg der Sprache fiir die 
Naturgcschiclite des Menschen, pp. 16 — 18. Weimar, 1858. 



216 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

very effect of the subordination involved in slavery lost their 
own diverse languages and adopted that of their masters, would 
vanish. And metaphysical philosophers, observing the 
identity of Haytian French with that spoken on the shores 
of the Seine and the Loire, would argue that the men of St. 
Domingo with woolly heads, black and oily skins, small calves, 
and slightly bent knees, are of the same race, descended from 
the same parental stock, as the Frenchmen with silky brown, 
chestnut, or fair hair, and white skins. For they would say, 
their languages are more similar than French is to German or 
Spanish." * 

It must not be imagined that the case put by 
Desmoulins is a merely hypothetical one. Events 
precisely similar to the transport of a body of 
Africans to the West India Islands, indeed, cannot 
have happened among uncivilised races, but 
similar results have followed the importation of 
bodies of conquerors among an enslaved people 
over and over again. There is hardly a country 
in Europe in which two or more nations speaking 
widely different tongues have not become inter- 
mixed ; and there is hardly a language of Europe 
of which we have any right to think that its 
structure affords a just indication of the amount 
of that intermixture. 

As Dr. Latham has well said : — 

"It is certain that the language of England is of Anglo- 
Saxon origin, and that the remains of the original Keltic are 
unimportant. It is by no means so certain that the blood of 
Englishmen is equally Germanic. A vast amount of Kelticism, 

1 Desmoulins, Histoire Naturelle des Races Humaincs, p. 345, 
1826. 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 217 

not found in our tongue, very probably exists in our pedigrees. 
The ethnology of France is still more complicated. Many 
writers make the Parisian a Roman on the strength of his 
language ; whilst others make him a Kelt on the strength of 
certain moral characteristics, combined with the previous 
Kelticism of the original Gauls. Spanish and Portuguese, as 
languages, are derivations from the Latin ; Spain and Portugal, as 
countries, are Iberic, Latin, Gothic, and Arab, in different 
proportions. Italian is modern Latin all the world over ; yet 
surely there must be much Keltic blood in Lombardy, and much 
Etruscan intermixture in Tuscany. 

"In the ninth century every man between the Elbe and the 
Niemen spoke some Slavonic dialect ; they now nearly all speak 
German. Surely the blood is less exclusively Gothic than the 
speech." x 

In other words, what philologer, if he had 
nothing but the vocabulary and grammar of the 
French and English languages to guide him, 
would dream of the real causes of the unlikeness 
of a Norman to a Proven 9al, of an Orcadian to a 
Cornishman ? How readily might he be led to 
suppose that the different climatal conditions to 
which these speakers of one tongue have so long 
been exposed, have caused their physical differ- 
ences ; and how little would he suspect that these 
are due (as we happen to know they are) to wide 
differences of blood. 

Few take duly into account the evidence which 
exists as to the ease with which unlettered 
savages gain or lose a language. Captain Erskine, 
in his interesting " Journal of a Cruise among the 
Islands of the Western Pacific," especially remarks 
1 Latham, Man and his Migrations, p. 171. 



218 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

upon the " avidity with which the inhabitants of 
the polyglot islands of Melanesia, from New 
Caledonia to the Solomon Islands, adopt the 
improvements of a more perfect language than 
their own, which different causes and accidental 
communication still continue to bring to them ; " 
and he adds that " among the Melanesian islands 
scarcely one was found by us which did not 
possess, in some cases still imperfectly, the decimal 
system of numeration in addition to their own, in 
which they reckon only to five." 

Yet how much philological reasoning in favour 
of the affinity or diversity of two distinct peoples 
has been based on the mere comparison of 
numerals ! 

But the most instructive example of the fallacy 
which may attach to merely philological reason- 
ings, is that afforded by the Feejeans, who are, 
physically, so intimately connected with the ad- 
jacent Negritos of New Caledonia, &c, that no 
one can doubt to what stock they belong, and 
who yet, in the form and substance of their 
language, are Polynesian. The case is as remark- 
able as if the Canary Islands should have been 
found to be inhabited by negroes speaking Arabic, 
or some other clearly Semitic dialect, as their 
mother tongue. As it happens, the physical 
peculiarities of the Feejeans are so striking, and 
the conditions under which they live are so 
similar to those of the Polynesians, that no one 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 219 

has ventured to suggest that they are merely 
modified Polynesians — a suggestion which could 
otherwise certainly have been made. But if 
languages may be thus transferred from one stock 
to another, without any corresponding intermixture 
of blood, what ethnological value has philology ? 
— what security does unity of language afford us 
that the speakers of that language may not have 
sprung from two, or three, or a dozen, distinct 
sources ? 

Thus we come, at last, to the purely zoological 
method, from which it is not unnatural to expect 
more than from any other, seeing that, after all, 
the problems of ethnology are simply those which 
are presented to the zoologist by every widely 
distributed animal he studies. The father of modern 
zoology seems to have had no doubt upon this 
point. At the twenty-eighth page of the standard 
twelfth edition of the " Systema Naturae," in fact, 
we find : — f 

I. Primates. 
Dentes primores incisor es : superior es IV. paralleli, mammce 

perforates II. 
1. Homo. Nosce te ipsum. 

Sapiens. 1. H. diurnus : varians cicUura, loco. 

Ferus. Tetrapus, mutus, hirsutus. 

Americanus a. Rufus, cholericus, rectus — Pilis nigris, rectis, 
crassis — Naribus patulis — Facie ephelitica : 
Mento subimberbi. 
Pertinax, contentus, liber. Pingit se lineis 

daedaleis rubris. 
Eegiiur Consuetudine. 



220 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 



Europccus #. Albus sanguineus torosus. Tills flavescentibus, 

prolixis. 
Oculis cceruleis. 
Levis, argutus, inventor. Tcgitur Yestimentis 

arctis. llegitur Ritibus. 

Asiaticus y. Luridus, melancholicus, rigidus. Pilis nigri- 
cantibus. Oculis fuscis. Severus, fastuosus, 
avarus. Tcgitur Indumentis laxis. 
Regitur Opinionibus. 

Afer 8. Niger, phlegmaticus, laxus. Pilis atris, con- 

tortuplicatis. Cute holosericea. Naso simo. 
Labiis tumidis. Feminis sinus pudoris. 
Mammce lactantes prolixse. 
Vafcr, segnis, negligens. Ungit se pingui. 
Regitur Arbitrio. 

Monstrosus e. Solo (a) et arte (b c) variat. : 

a. Alpini parvi, agiles, timidi. 
Patagonici magni, segnes. 

b. Monorchides ut minus fertiles : Hottentotti. 
Juncece puellse, abdomine attenuato : Euro- 

psese. 

c. Macroccphali capiti conico : Chinenses. 
Plagioccphali capite antice compresso : Cana- 

denses. 

Turn a few pages further on in the same 
volume, and there appears, with a fine impar- 
tiality in the distribution of capitals and sub- 
divisional headings : — 



III. ¥eum. 
Denies primores superiores sex, acutiusculi. 



Canini solitarii. 



12. Canis. Dentes primores superiores VI. : laterales 

longiores distances : intermedii lobati. In- 
feriors VI. : laterales lobati. 

Laniarii solitarii, incurvati. 

Molares VI. s. VII. (pluresve quam in relifjuis.) 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 221 

familiaris 1. C. cauda (sinistrorsum) recurvata , 

domesticus o. auriculis erectis, cauda subtus lanata. 

saaax &. auriculis pendulis, digito spurio ad tibias 

posticas. 
grajus y t magnitudine lupi, trunco curvato, rostro at- 

tenuato, &c. &c. 



Linnaeus' definition of what he considers to be 
mere varieties of the species Man are, it will be 
observed, as completely free from any illusion to 
linguistic peculiarities as those brief and pregnant 
sentences in which he sketches the characters of 
the varieties of the species Dog. "Pilis nigris, 
naribus patulis " may be set against " auriculis 
erectis, cauda subtus lanata ; " while the remarks 
on the morals and manners of the human sub- 
ject seem as if they were thrown in merely by 
way of makeweight. 

BufTon, Blumenbach (the founder of ethnology 
as a special science), Rudolphi, Bory de St. 
Vincent, Desmoulins, Cuvier, Retzius, indeed I 
may say all the naturalists proper, have dealt with 
man from a no less completely zoological point of 
view ; while, as might have been expected, those 
who have been least naturalists, and most lin- 
guists, have most neglected the zoological method, 
the neglect culminating in those who have 
been altogether devoid of acquaintance with 
anatomy. 

Prichard's proposition, that language is more 
persistent than physical characters, is one which 



222 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

has never been proved, and indeed admits of no 
proof, seeing that the records of language do not 
extend so far as those of physical characters. 
But, until the superior tenacity of linguistic over 
physical peculiarities is shown, and until the 
abundant evidence which exists, that the language 
of a people may change without corresponding 
physical change in that people, is shown to be 
valueless, it is plain that the zoological court of 
appeal is the highest for the ethnologist, and that 
no evidence can be set against that derived from 
physical characters. 

What, then, will a new survey of mankind from 
the Linnean point of view teach us ? 

The great antipodal block of land we call 
Australia has, speaking roughly, the form of a 
vast quadrangle, 2,000 miles on the side, and 
extends from the hottest tropical, to the middle of 
the temperate, zone. Setting aside the foreign 
colonists introduced within the last century, it is 
inhabited by people no less remarkable for the 
uniformity, than for the singularity, of their 
physical characters and social state. For the most 
part of fair stature, erect and well built, except for 
an unusual slenderness of the lower limbs, the 
Australians have dark, usually chocolate- 
coloured skins ; fine dark wavy hair ; dark eyes, 
overhung by beetle brows ; coarse, projecting jaws ; 
broad and dilated, but not especially flattened, 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 223 

noses, and lips which, though prominent, are 
eminently flexible. 

The skulls of these people are always long and 
narrow, with a smaller development of the frontal 
sinuses than usually corresponds with such largely 
developed brow ridges. An Australian skull of a 
round form, or one the transverse diameter of 
which exceeds eight-tenths of its length, has 
never been seen. These people, in a word, are 
eminently " dolichocephalic," or long-headed ; but, 
with this one limitation, their crania present con- 
siderable variations, some being comparatively 
high and arched, while others are more remarkably 
depressed than almost any other human skulls. 
The female pelvis differs comparatively little from 
the European ; but in the pelves of male Austra- 
lians which I have examined, the antero-posterior 
and transverse diameters approach equality more 
nearly than is the case in Europeans. 

No Australian tribe has ever been known to 
cultivate the ground, 1 to use metals, pottery, or 
any kind of textile fabric. They rarely construct 
huts. Their means of navigation are limited to 
rafts or canoes, made of sheets of bark. Clothing^ 
except skin cloaks for protection from cold, is a 
superfluity with which they dispense ; and though 
they have some singular weapons, almost peculiar 

[ l At Cape York we found that the natives had learned from 
their Papuan neighbours to grow a little coarse tobacco ; and, 
elsewhere, yams are said to be grown, but hardly cultivated. 
Plaiting, basket-making, and netting are practised. — 1894.] 



224 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

to themselves, they are wholly unacquainted with 
bows and arrows. 

It is but a step, as it were, across Bass's Straits 
to Tasmania. Neither climate nor the charac- 
teristic forms of vegetable or animal life change 
largely on the south side of the Straits, but the 
early voyagers found Man singularly different from 
him on the north side. The skin of the Tasmanian 
was dark, though he lived between parallels of 
latitude corresponding with those of middle 
Europe in our own hemisphere ; his jaws projected, 
his head was long and narrow ; his civilization was 
about on a footing with that of the Australian, if 
not lower, for I cannot discover that the Tasmanian 
understood the use of the throwing-stick. But he 
differed from the Australian in his woolly, negro- 
like hair ; whence the name of Negrito, which has 
been applied to him and his congeners. 

Such Negritos — differing more or less from the 



^t?- 1 - 



Tasmanian but agreeing with him in dark skin 
and woolly hair — occupy New Caledonia, the New 
Hebrides, the Louisiade Archipelago ; and stretch- 
ing to the Papuan Islands, and for a doubtful 
extent beyond them to the north and west, form a 
sort of belt, or zone, of Negrito population, inter- 
posed between the Australians on the west and the 
inhabitants of the great majority of the Pacific 
islands on the east. 

The cranial characters of the Negritos vary 
considerably more than those of their skin and hair, 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 225 

the most notable circumstance being the strong 
Australian aspect which distinguishes many 
Negrito skulls, while others tend rather towards 
forms common in the Polynesian islands. 

In civilization, New Caledonia exhibits an 
advance upon Tasmania ; and, farther north, there 
is a still greater improvement. But the bows and 
arrows, the perched houses, the outrigger canoes, 
the habits of betel-chewing and of kawa-drinking, 
which abound more or less among the northern 
Negritos, are probably to be regarded not as the 
products of an indigenous civilization, but merely 
as indications of the extent to which foreign 
influences have modified the primitive social state 
of these people. 

From Tasmania or New Caledonia, to New 
Zealand or Tongataboo, is again but a brief 
voyage : but it brings about a still more notable 
change in the aspect of the indigenous population 
than that effected by the passage of Bass's Straits. 
Instead of being chocolate-coloured people, the 
Maories and Tongans are light brown ; instead of 
woolly, they have straight, or wavy, black hair. 
And if from New Zealand, we travel some 5,000 
miles east to Easter Island ; and from Easter Island, 
for as great a distance north-west, to the Sandwich 
Islands; and thence 7,000 miles, westward and 
southward, to Sumatra; and even across the 
Indian Ocean, into the interior of Madagascar, we 
shall everywhere meet with people whose hair is 
179 



226 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY it 

straight or wavy, and whose skins exhibit various 
shades of brown. These are the Polynesians, 
Micronesians, Indonesians, whom Latham has 
grouped together under the common title of 
Amphinesians. 

The cranial characters of these people, as of the 
Negritos, are less constant than those of their skin 
and hair. The Maori has a long skull ; the Sand- 
wich Islander a broad skull. Some, like these, 
have strong brow ridges ; others like the Dayaks 
and many Polynesians, have hardly any nasal 
indentation. It is only in the westernmost parts 
of their area that the Amphinesian nations know 
anything about bows and arrows as weapons, or are 
acquainted with the use of metals or with pottery. 
Everywhere they cultivate the ground, construct 
houses, and skilfully build and manage outrigger, 
or double, canoes ; while, almost everywhere, they 
use some kind of fabric for clothing. 

Between Easter Island, or the Sandwich Islands, 
and any part of the American coast is a much 
wider interval than that between Tasmania and 
New Zealand, but the ethnological interval be- 
tween the American and the Polynesian is less 
than that between either of the previously named 
stocks. 

The typical American has straight black hair 
and dark eyes, his skin exhibiting various shades 
of reddish or yellowish brown, sometimes inclining 
to olive. The face is broad and scantily bearded ; 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 227 

the skull wide and high. Such people extend 
from Patagonia to Mexico, and much farther north 
along the west coast. In the main a race of 
hunters, they had nevertheless, at the time of the 
discovery of the Americas, attained a remarkable 
degree of civilization in some localities. They had 
domesticated ruminants, and not only practised 
agriculture, but had learned the value of irriga- 
tion. They manufactured textile fabrics, were 
masters of the potter's art, and knew how to erect 
massive buildings of stone. They understood 
the working of the precious, though not of the use- 
ful, metals ; 1 and had even attained to a rude kind 
of hieroglyphic, or picture, writing. The Ameri- 
cans not only employ the bow and arrow, but, like 
some Amphinesians, the blow-pipe, as offensive 
weapons : but I am not aware that the outrigger 
canoe has ever been observed among them. 

I have reason to suspect that some of the 
Fuegian tribes differ cranially from the typical 
Americans; 2 and the Northern and Eastern 
American tribes have longer skulls than their 
Southern compatriots. But the Esquimaux, who 
roam on the desolate and ice-bound coast of Arctic 
America, certainly present us with a new stock. 
The Esquimaux (among whom the Greenlanders are 
included), in fact, though they share the straight 

P "With the exception of copper and bronze. — 1894.] 

P A suspicion subsequently verified. See a memoir on 

American Skulls, Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. Vol. 16. 

—1894.1 



228 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

black hair of the proper Americans, are generally 
a duller complexioned, shorter, and a more squat 
people, and they have still more prominent cheek- 
bones. But the circumstance which most com- 
pletely separates them from the typical Americans, 
is the form of their skulls, which instead of being 
broad, high, and truncated behind, are eminently 
long, usually low, and prolonged backwards. 
These Hyperborean people clothe themselves in 
skins, know nothing of pottery, and hardly any- 
thing of metals. Dependent for existence upon 
the produce of the chase, the seal and the whale 
are to them what the cocoa-nut tree and the 
plantain are to the savages of more genial 
climates. Not only are those animals meat and 
raiment, but they are canoes, sledges, weapons, 
tools, windows, and fire ; while they support the 
dog, who is the indispensable ally and beast of 
burden of the Esquimaux. 

It is admitted that the Tchuktchi, on the 
eastern side of Behring's Straits, are, in all essential 
respects, Esquimaux; and I do not know that 
there is any satisfactory evidence to show that the 
Tunguses and Samoiedes do not essentially share 
the same physical characters. Southward, there 
are indications of Esquimaux characters among 
the Japanese, and it is possible that their influence 
may be traced yet further. 

However this may be, Eastern Asia, from Mant- 
chouria to Siam, Thibet, and Northern Hindostan, 



IV METHODS AND KESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 229 

is continuously inhabited by men, usually of 
short stature, with skins varying in colour from 
yellow to olive ; with broad cheek-bones and faces 
that, owing to the insignificance of the nose, are 
exceedingly flat; and with small, obliquely-set 1 
black eyes and straight black hair, which some- 
times attains a very great length upon the scalp, 
but is always scanty upon the face and body. 
The skull, never much elongated, is, generally, 
remarkably broad and rounded, with hardly any 
nasal depression, and but slight, if any, projection 
of the jaws. Many of these people, for whom the 
old name of Mongolians may be retained, are 
nomades ; others, as the Chinese, have attained a 
remarkable and apparently indigenous civilization, 
only surpassed by that of Europe. 

At the north-western extremity of Europe the 
Lapps repeat the characters of the Eastern 
Asiatics. Between these extreme points, the 
Mongolian stock is not continuous, but is repre- 
sented by a chain of more or less isolated tribes, 
who pass under the name of Calmucks and Tar- 
tars, and form Mongolian islands, as it were, in the 
midst of an ocean of other people. 

The waves of this ocean are the nations for 
whom, in order to avoid the endless confusion pro- 
duced by our present half-physical, half-philo- 

[ l The obliquity, it must be recollected, is not in the position 
of the eyeball but arises from the arrangement of the skin in 
the neighbourhood of the eyelids. — 1894 ] 



230 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

logical classification, I shall use a new name — 
Xanthochroi — indicating that they are yellow " 
haired and " pale " in complexion. The Chinese 
historians of the Han dynasty, writing in the third 
century before our era, describe, with much 
minuteness, certain numerous and powerful 
barbarians with " yellow hair, green eyes, and 
prominent noses," who, the black-haired, skew- 
eyed, and flat-nosed annalists remark in passing, 
are "just like the apes from whom they are 
descended/' These people held, in force, the 
upper waters of the Yenisei, and thence under 
various names stretched southward to Thibet and 
Kashgar. Fair-haired and blue-eyed northern ene- 
mies were no less known to the ancient Hindoos, 
to the Persians, and to the Egyptians, on the south 
and west of the great central Asiatic area ; while 
the testimony of all European antiquity is to the 
effect that, before and since the period in question, 
there lay beyond the Danube, the Rhine, and the 
Seine, a vast and dangerous yellow or red haired, 
fair-skinned, blue-eyed population. Whether the 
disturbers of the marches of the Roman Empire 
were called Gauls or Germans, Goths, Alans, or 
Scythians, one thing seems certain, that until the 
invasion of the Huns, they were largely tall, fair, 
blue-eyed men. 

If any one should think fit to assume that, in 
the year 100 B.C., there was one continuous 
Xanthochroic population from the Rhine to the 



IV METHODS AND KESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 231 

Yenisei, and from the Ural mountains to the 
Hindoo Koosh, I know not that any evidence 
exists by which that position could be upset, while 
the existing state of things is rather in its 
favour than otherwise. For the Scandinavians, 
the Germans, the Slavonian and the Finnish 
tribes, to a great extent ; some of the inhabitants 
of Greece, many Turks, some Kirghis, and 
some Mantchous, the Ossetes in the Caucasus, the 
Siahposh, the Rohillas, are at the present day fair, 
yellow or red haired, and blue-eyed ; and the 
interpolation of tribes of Mongolian hair and com- 
plexion, as far west as the Caspian Steppes and 
the Crimea, might justly be accounted for by those 
subsequent westward irruptions of the Mongolian 
stock, of which history furnishes abundant testi- 
mony. The furthermost limit of the Xanthochroi 
north-westward is Iceland and the British Isles ; 
south-westward, they are traceable at intervals 
through Syria and the Berber country, ending in 
the Canary Islands. The cranial characters of the 
Xanthochroi are not, at present, strictly definable. 
The Scandinavians are certainly long-headed; 
but many Germans, the Swiss so far as they are 
Germanized, the Slavonians, the Fins, and the 
Turks, are short-headed. What were the cranial 
characters of the ancient " U-suns " and " Ting- 
lings " of the valley of the Yenisei is unknown. 

West and south of the area occupied by the 
chief mass of the Xanthochroi, and north of the 



232 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

Sahara, is a broad belt of land, shaped like a ^-. 
Between the forks of the Y lies the Mediterranean ; 
the stem of it is Arabia. The stem is bathed by 
the Indian Ocean, the western ends of the forks 
by the Atlantic. The majority of the people in- 
habiting the area thus roughly defined have, like 
the Xanthochroi, prominent noses, pale skins and 
wavy hair, with abundant beards ; but, unlike them, 
the hair is black or dark and the eyes usually so. 
They may thence be called the Melanochroi. 
Such people are found in the British Islands, in 
Western and Southern Gaul, in Spain, in Italy 
south of the Po, in parts of Greece, in Syria and 
Arabia, stretching as far northward and eastward 
as the Caucasus and Persia. They are the chief 
inhabitants of Africa north of the Sahara, and, like 
the Xanthochroi, they end in the Canary Islands. 
They are known as Kelts, Iberians, Etruscans, 
Romans, Pelasgians, Berbers, Semites. The 
majority of them are long-headed, and of smaller 
stature than the Xanthochroi. 1 It is needless 
to remark upon the civilization of these two 
great stocks. With them has originated every- 
thing that is highest in science, in art, in law, 
in politics, and in mechanical inventions. In their 
hands, at the present moment, lies the order of the 
social world, and to them its progress is committed. 
South of the Atlas, and of the Great Desert, 

[ l See the Essay on the Aryan Question, in this volume, for 
some qualifications of these statements necessitated by further 
knowledge. 1894.] 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 233 

Middle Africa exhibits a new type of humanity in 
the Negro, with his dark skin, woolly hair, pro- 
jecting jaws, and thick lips. As a rule, the skull 
of the Negro is remarkably long ; it rarely 
approaches the broad type, and never exhibits the 
roundness of the Mongolian. A cultivator of the 
ground, and dwelling in villages; a maker of 
pottery, and a worker in the useful as well as the 
ornamental metals; employing the bow and 
arrow as well as the spear, the typical negro stands 
high in point of civilization above the Australian. 

Resembling the Negroes in cranial characters, 
the Bushmen of South Africa differ from them in 
their yellowish brown skins, their tufted hair, their 
remarkably small stature, and their tendency to 
fatty and other integumentary outgrowths ; nor is 
the wonderful click with which their speech is in- 
terspersed to be overlooked in enumerating the 
physical characteristics of this strange people. 

The so-called " Dravidian " populations of 
Southern Hindostan lead us back, physically as 
well as geographically, towards the Australians ; 1 

[ l Of the affinities of these stocks I think there can he no 
douht. I was formerly inclined to believe that the ancient 
Egyptian was the highest term in an ascending series : Australian 
— ^Dravidian — Egyptian of allied stocks. And I believe still that 
there is a good deal to be said for that hypothesis. One of the 
most interesting problems at present is the relation of the prse- 
semitic population of Babylonia to the Dra vidians, on the one 
hand, and the Old Egyptian on the other. Only one point 
appears to me to be quite clear, if the statues of Tell Loh re- 
present these people ; that there is not a trace of Mongolian 
affinity about them. — 1894. ] 



234 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

while the diminutive MlNCOPlES of the Andaman 
Islands lie midway between the Negro and 
Negrito races, and, as Mr. Busk has pointed out, oc- 
casionally present the rare combination of brachy- 
cephaly, or short-headedness, with woolly hair. 

In the preceding progress along the outskirts of 
the habitable world, eleven readily distinguishable 
stocks, or persistent modifications, of mankind, 
have been recognized. I have purposely omitted 
such people as the Abyssinians and the Hindoos 
of the valleys of the Ganges and Indus, who 
there is every reason to believe result from the 
intermixture of distinct stocks. Perhaps I ought 
for like reasons, to have ignored the Mincopies. 
But I do not pretend that my enumeration is 
complete or, in any sense, perfect. It is enough 
for my purpose if it be admitted (and I think it 
cannot be denied) that those which I have men- 
tioned exist, are well marked, and occupy the 
greater part of the habitable globe. 

In attempting to classify these persistent modi- 
fications after the manner of naturalists, the first 
circumstance that attracts one's attention is the 
broad contrast between the people with straight 
and wavy hair, and those with crisp, woolly, or 
tufted hair. Bory de St. Vincent, noting this 
fundamental distinction, divided mankind accord- 
ingly into the two primary groups of Leiotrichi 
and Ulotrichi,— terms which are open to criticism, 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 235 

but which I adopt in the accompanying table, 
because they have been used. It is better for 
science to accept a faulty name which has the 
merit of existence, than to burthen it with a 
faultless newly invented one. 

Under each of these divisions are two columns, 
one for the Brachycephali, or short heads, and 
one for the Dolichocephali, 1 or long heads. Again, 
each column is subdivided transversely into four 
compartments, one for the " leucous," people with 
fair complexions and yellow or red hair ; one for 
the " leucomelanous," with dark hair and pale 
skins ; one for the " xanthomelanous," with black 
hair and yellow, brown, or olive skins ; and one 
for the "melanous," with black hair and dark 
brown or blackish skins. 

Leiotrichi. Ulotrichi. 

Dolichocephali. Brachycephali. Dolichocephali. Brachycephali. 
Leucous. 

.... Xanthochroi .... 
Leucomelanous. 

.... Melanochroi .... 
Xanthomelanous. 

Esquimaux. Mongolians. Bushmen. 
Amphinesians. 
Americans. 
Melanous. 

Australians. Negroes. Mincopies (?) 

Negritos. 
* # * The names of the stocks known only since the fifteenth cen- 
tury are put into italics. If the " Skr tilings" of the Norse 
discoverers of America were Esquimaux, Europeans became 
acquainted ivith the latter six or seven centuries earlier. 

1 Skulls, the transverse diameter of which is more than eight- 



236 METHODS AND EESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

It is curious to observe that almost all the 
woolly-haired people are also long-headed ; while 
among the straight-haired nations broad heads 
preponderate, and only two stocks, the Esquimaux 
and the Australians, are exclusively long-headed. 

One of the acutest and most original of ethno- 
logists, Desmoulins, originated the idea, which has 
subsequently been fully developed by Agassiz, 
that the distribution of the persistent modifica- 
tions of man is governed by the same laws as that 
of other animals, and that both fall into the same 
great distributional provinces. Thus, Australia; 
America, south of Mexico; the Arctic regions; 
Europe, Syria, Arabia, and North Africa, taken 
together, are each regions eminently characterised 
by the nature of their animal and vegetable popu- 
lations, and each, as we have seen, has its peculiar 
and characteristic form of man. But it may be 
doubted whether the parallel thus drawn will 
hold good strictly, and in all cases. The 
Tasmanian Fauna and Flora are essentially Aus- 
tralian, and the like is true, to a less extent, of 
many, if not of all, the Papuan islands ; but the 
Negritos who inhabit these islands are strikingly 
different from the Australians. Again, the differ- 
ences between the Mongolians and the Xantho- 
chroi are out of all proportion greater than those 

tenths the long" diameter, are short ; those which have the 
transverse diameter less than eight-tenths the longitudinal, are 
long. 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 237 

between the Faunae and Florae of Central and 
Eastern Asia. But whatever the difficulties in 
the way of the detailed application of this com- 
parison of the distribution of men with that of 
animals, it is well worthy of being borne in mind, 
and carried as far as it will go. 

Apart from all speculation, a very curious fact 
regarding the distribution of the persistent modi- 
fications of mankind becomes apparent on inspect- 
ing an Ethnological chart, projected in such a 
manner that the Pacific Ocean occupies its centre. 
Such a chart exhibits an Australian area occupied 
by dark smooth-haired people, separated by an 
incomplete inner zone of dark woolly-haired 
Negritos and Negroes, from an outer zone of 
comparatively pale and smooth-haired men, 
occupying the Americas, and nearly all Asia 1 and 
North Africa. 2 

Such is a brief sketch of the characters and 
distribution of the persistent modifications, or 
stocks, of mankind at the present day. If we seek 
for direct evidence of how long this state of things 
has lasted, we shall find little enough, and that 
little far from satisfactory. Of the eleven different 
stocks enumerated, seven have been known to us 
for less than 400 years ; and of these seven not 
one possessed a fragment of written history at the 

P Hindostan excepted. — 1894.] 
[ 2 Egypt excepted.— 1894.] 



238 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

time itcame into contact withEuropean civilization. 
The other four — the Negroes, Mongolians, 
Xanthochroi, and Melanochroi — have always 
existed in some of the localities in which they are 
now found, nor do the negroes ever seem to have 
voluntarily travelled beyond the limits of their 
present area. But ancient history is in a great 
measure the record of the mutual encroachments 
of the other three stocks. 

On the whole, however, it is wonderful how 
little change has been effected by these mutual 
invasions and intermixtures. As at the present 
time, so at the dawn of history, the Melanochroi 
fringed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean ; the 
Xanthochroi occupied most of Central and 
Eastern Europe, and much of Western and 
Central Asia; while Mongolians held the extreme 
east of the Old World. So far as history teaches 
us, the populations of Europe, Asia and Africa 
were, twenty 1 centuries ago, just what they 
are now, in their broad features and general dis- 
tribution. 

The evidence yielded by Archaeology is not 
very definite, but so far as it goes, it is to much 
the same effect. The mound builders of Central 
America seem to have had the characteristic short 
and broad head of the modern inhabitants of that 
continent. The tumuli and tombs of Ancient 
Scandinavia, of pre-Roman Britain, of Gaul, of 
[ l We may now safely say thirty or forty.— 1894.] 



IV METHODS AND KESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 239 

Switzerland, reveal two types of skull — a broad 
and a long — of which, in Scandinavia, the broad 
seems to have belonged to the older stock, while 
the reverse was probably the case in Britain, and 
certainly in Switzerland. It has been assumed 
that the broad-skulled people of ancient Scandi- 
navia were Lapps ; but there is no proof of the 
fact, and they may have been, like the broad- 
skulled Swiss and Germans, Xanthochroi. One of 
the greatest of ethnological difficulties is to know 
where the modern Swedes, Norsemen, and Saxons 
got their long heads, as all their neighbours, Fins, 
Lapps, Slavonians, and South Germans, are broad- 
headed. Again, who were the small-handed * 
long-headed people of the " bronze epoch," and 
what has become of the infusion of their blood 
among the Xanthochroi ? 

At present Palaeontology yields no safe data to 
the ethnologist. We know absolutely nothing of 
the ethnological characters of the men of Abbe- 
ville and Hoxne ; but must be content with the 
demonstration, in itself of immense value, that 
Man existed in Western Europe when its physical 
condition was widely different from what it is now, 
and when animals existed, which, though they 
belong to what is, properly speaking, the present 

f 1 Supposed to be small-handed from the small handles of 
their bronze swords. But I observe in the Assyrian sculptures 
the same small handles, while the hands are by no means small. 
How did the Assyrians use their swords ? So far as I know 
thrusting alone is represented. — 1894.] 



240 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

order of things, have long been extinct. Beyond 
the limits of a fraction of Europe, Paleontology 
tells us nothing of man or of his works. 

To sum up our knowledge of the ethnological 
past of man ; so far as the light is bright, it shows 
him substantially as he is now ; and, when it grows 
dim, it permits us to see no sign that he was other 
than he is now. 

It is a general belief that men of different 
stocks differ as much physiologically as they do 
morphologically ; but it is very hard to prove, in 
any particular case, how much of a supposed 
national characteristic is due to inherent physio- 
logical peculiarities, and how much to the influence 
of circumstances. There is much evidence to 
show, however, that some stocks enjoy a partial or 
complete immunity from diseases which destroy, 
or decimate, others. Thus there seems good 
ground for the belief that Negroes are remarkably 
exempt from yellow fever; and that, among 
Europeans, the melanochroic people are less 
obnoxious to its ravages than the xanthochroic. 
But many writers, not content with physiological 
differences of this kind, undertake to prove the 
existence of others of far greater moment; and, 
indeed, to show that certain stocks of mankind 
exhibit, more or less distinctly, the physiological 
characters of true species. Unions between these 
stocks, and still more between the half-breeds 
arising from their mixture, are affirmed to be 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 241 

either infertile, or less fertile than those which 
take place between males and females of either 
stock under the same circumstances. Some go 
so far as to assert that no mixed breeds of man- 
kind can maintain themselves without the assist- 
tance of one or other of the parent stocks, and 
that, consequently, they must inevitably be ob- 
literated in the long run. 

Here, again, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain 
trustworthy evidence and to free the effects of 
the pure physiological experiment from adven- 
titious influences. The only trial which, by a 
strange chance, was kept clear of all such influences 
—the only instance in which two distinct stocks of 
mankind were crossed, and their progeny inter- 
married without any admixture from without — 
is the famous case of the Pitcairn Islanders, who 
were the progeny of Bligh's English sailors by 
Tahitian women. The results of this experiment, 
as everybody knows, are dead against those who 
maintain the doctrine of human hybridity, seeing 
that the Pitcairn Islanders, even though they 
necessarily contracted consanguineous marriages, 
throve and multiplied exceedingly. 

But those who are disposed to believe in this 
doctrine should study the evidence brought forward 
in its support by M. Broca, its latest and ablest 
advocate, and compare this evidence with that 
which the botanists, as represented by a Gaertner, 
or by a Darwin, think it indispensable to obtain 

180 



242 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

before they will admit the infertility of crosses 
between two allied kinds of plants. They will 
then, I think, be satisfied that the doctrine in 
question rests upon a very unsafe foundation ; that 
the facts adduced in its support are capable of 
many other interpretations ; and, indeed, that from 
the very nature of the case, demonstrative evidence 
one way or the other is almost unattainable. 
A priori, I should be disposed to expect a certain 
amount of infertility between some of the extreme 
modifications of mankind ; and still more between 
the offsprings of their intermixture. A posteriori, 
I cannot discover any satisfactory proof that such 
infertility exists. 

From the facts of ethnology I now turn to 
the theories and speculations of ethnologists, 
which have been devised to explain these facts, 
and to furnish satisfactory answers to the inquiry 
— what conditions have determined the existence 
of the persistent modifications of mankind, 
and have caused their distribution to be what 
it is ? 

These speculations may be grouped under 
three heads : firstly the Monogenist hypotheses ; 
secondly, those of the Polygenists ; and thirdly, 
that which would result from a simple application 
of Darwinian principles to mankind. 

According to the Monogenists, all mankind have 
sprung from a single pair, whose multitudinous 
progeny spread themselves over the world, such as 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 243 

it now is, and became modified into the forms we 
meet with in the various regions of the earth, by 
the effect of the climatal and other conditions to 
which they were subjected. 

The advocates of this hypothesis are divisible 
into several schools. There are those who repre- 
sent the most numerous, respectable, and would- 
be orthodox of the public, and are what may be 
called " Adamites," pure and simple. They 
believe that Adam was made out of earth some- 
where in Asia, about six thousand years ago ; that 
Eve was was modelled from one of his ribs ; and 
that the progeny of these two having been re- 
duced to the eight persons who were landed on 
the summit of Mount Ararat after an universal 
deluge, all the nations of the earth have proceeded 
from these last, have migrated to their present 
localities, and have become converted into Negroes, 
Australians, Mongolians, &c, within that time. 
Five-sixths of the public are taught this Adamitic 
Monogenism, as if it were an established truth, 
and believe it. I do not ; and I am not acquainted 
with any man of science, or duly instructed person, 
who does. 

A second school of monogenists, not worthy of 
much attention, attempts to hold a place midway 
between the Adamites and a third division, who 
take up a purely scientific position, and require to 
be dealt with accordingly. This third division, m 
fact, numbers in its ranks Linmeus, BufFon, 



244 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

Blumenbach, Cuvier, Prichard, and many distin- 
guished living ethnologists. 

These " Rational Monogenists," or, at any rate, 
the more modern among them, hold, firstly, that 
the present condition of the earth has existed for 
untold ages ; secondly, that, at a remote period, 
beyond the ken of Archbishop Usher, man was 
created, somewhere between the Caucasus and 
the Hindoo Koosh ; thirdly, that he might have 
migrated thence to all parts of the inhabited 
world, seeing that none of them are unattainable 
from some other inhabited part, by men provided 
with only such means of transport as savages are 
known to possess and must have invented ; 
fourthly, that the operation of t)he existing diver- 
sities of climate and other conditions upon people 
so migrating, is sufficient to account for all the 
diversities of mankind. 

Of the truth of the first of these propositions no 
competent judge now entertains any doubt. The 
second is more open to discussion ; for, in these 
latter days, many question the special creation of 
man : and even if his special creation be granted, 
there is not a shadow of a reason why he should 
have been created in Asia rather than anywhere 
else. Of all the odd myths that have arisen in 
the scientific world, the " Caucasian mystery," 
invented quite innocently by Blumenbach, is the 
oddest. A Georgian woman's skull was the 
handsomest in his collection. Hence it became 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 245 

his model exemplar of human skulls, from which 
all others might be regarded as deviations ; and 
out of this, by some strange intellectual hocus- 
pocus, grew up the notion that the Caucasian 
man is the prototypic "Adamic" man, and his 
country the primitive centre of our kind. Per- 
haps the most curious thing of all is, that the 
said Georgian skull, after all, is not a skull of 
average form, but distinctly belongs to the 
brachycephalic group. 

With the third proposition I am quite disposed 
to agree, though it must be recollected that it is 
one thing to allow that a given migration is 
possible, and another to admit there is good 
reason to believe it has really taken place. 

But I can find no sufficient ground for accepting 
the fourth proposition ; and I doubt if it would 
ever have obtained its general currency except for 
the circumstance that fair Europeans are very 
readily tanned and embrowned by the sun. Yet 
I am not aware that there is a particle of proof 
that the cutaneous change thus effected can be- 
come hereditary, any more than that the enlarged 
livers, which plague our countrymen in India, can 
be transmitted ; while there is very strong 
evidence to the contrary. Not only, in fact, are 
there such cases as those of the English families 
in Barbadoes, who have remained for six genera- 
tions unaltered in complexion, but which are open 
to the objection that they may have received 



246 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

infusions of fresh European blood ; but there is 
the broad fact, that not a single indigenous Negro 
exists either in the great alluvial plains of tropical 
South America, or in the exposed islands of the 
Polynesian Archipelago, or among the populations 
of equatorial Borneo or Sumatra. No satisfactory 
explanation of these obvious difficulties has been 
offered by the advocates of the direct influence of 
conditions. And as for the more important modifi- 
cations observed in the structure of the brain, and 
in the form of the skull, no one has ever pre- 
tended to show in what way they can be effected 
directly by climate. 

It is here, in fact, that the strength of the 
Polygenists, or those who maintain that men 
primitively arose, not from one, but from many 
stocks, lies. Show us, they say to the Mono- 
genists, a single case in which the characters of 
a human stock have been essentially modified 
without its being demonstrable, or, at least, highly 
probable, that there has been intermixture of 
blood with some foreign stock. Bring forward 
any instance in which a part of the world, formerly 
inhabited by one stock, is now the dwelling-place 
of another, and we will prove the change to be 
the result of migration, or of intermixture, and 
not of modification of character by climatic 
influences. Finally, prove to us that the evidence 
in favour of the specific distinctness of many 
animals, admitted to be distinct species by all 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 247 

zoologists, is a whit better than that upon which 
we maintain the specific distinctness of men. 

If presenting unanswerable objections to your 
adversary were the same thing as proving your 
own case, the Poly gen ists would be in a fair way 
towards victory; but, unfortunately, as I have 
already observed, they have as yet completely 
failed to adduce satisfactory positive proof of the 
specific diversity of mankind. Like the Mono- 
genists, the Polygenists are of several sects ; some 
imagine that their assumed species of mankind 
were created where we find them — the African in 
Africa, and the Australian in Australia, along 
w T ith the other animals of their distributional 
province; others conceive that each species of 
man has resulted from the modification of some 
antecedent species of ape — the American from 
the broad-nosed Simians of the New World, the 
African from the Troglodytic stock, the Mongolian 
from the Orangs. 

The first hypothesis is hardly likely to win 
much favour. The whole tendency of modern 
science is to thrust the origination of things 
further and further into the background ; and 
the chief philosophical objection to Adam being, 
not his oneness, but the hypothesis of his special 
creation ; the multiplication of that objection 
tenfold is, whatever it may look, an increase, 
instead of a diminution, of the difficulties of the 
case. And, as to the second alternative, it may 



248 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

safely be affirmed that, even if the differences 
between men are specific, they are so small, that 
the assumption of more than one primitive stock 
for all is altogether superfluous. Surely no 
one can now be found to assert that any two 
stocks of mankind differ as much as a chim- 
panzee and an orang do ; still less that they are 
as unlike as either of these is to any New World 
Simian ! 

Lastly, the granting of the Polygenist premises 
does not, in the slightest degree, necessitate the 
Polygenist conclusion. Admit that Negroes and 
Australians, Negritos and Mongols are distinct 
species, or distinct genera, if you will, and you 
may yet, with perfect consistency, be the strictest 
of Monogenists, and even believe in Adam and 
Eve as the primaeval parents of all mankind. 

It is to Mr. Darwin we owe this discovery: it is 
he who, coming forward in the guise of an eclectic 
philosopher, presents his doctrine as the key to 
ethnology, and as reconciling and combining all 
that is good in the Monogenistic and Polygenistic 
schools. It is true that Mr. Darwin has not, in 
so many words, applied his views to ethnology ; 
but even he who " runs and reads " the " Origin 
of Species " can hardly fail to do so ; and, further- 
more, Mr. Wallace and M. Pouchet have recently 
treated of ethnological questions from this point 
of view. Let me, in conclusion, add my own con- 
tribution to the same store. 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 249 

I assume Man to have arisen in the manner 
which I have discussed elsewhere, and probably, 
though by no means necessarily, in one locality. 
Whether he arose singly, or a number of examples 
appeared contemporaneously, is also an open 
question for the believer in the production of 
species by the gradual modification of pre-existing 
ones. At what epoch of the world's history this 
took place, again, we have no evidence whatever. 
It may have been in the older tertiary, or earlier ; 
but what is most important to remember is, that 
the discoveries of late years have proved that man 
inhabited Western Europe, at any rate, before the 
occurrence of those great physical changes which 
have given Europe its present aspect. And as 
the same evidence shows that man was the con- 
temporary of animals which are now extinct, it 
is not too much to assume that his existence 
dates back at least as far as that of our present 
Fauna and Flora, or before the epoch of the 
drift. 

But if this be true, it is somewhat startling to 
reflect upon the prodigious changes which have 
taken place in the physical geography of this 
planet since man has been an occupant of it. 

During that period the greater part of the 
British islands, of Central Europe, of Northern 
Asia, have been submerged beneath the sea and 
raised up again. So has the great desert of 
Sahara, which occupies the major part of Northern 



250 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

Africa. 1 The Caspian and the Aral seas have 
been one, and their united waters have probably 
communicated with both the Arctic and the 
Mediterranean oceans. 2 The greater part of 
North America has been under water, and has 
emerged. It is highly probable that a large part 
of the Malayan Archipelago has sunk, and that its 
primitive continuity with Asia has been destroyed. 
Over the great Polynesian area subsidence has 
taken place to the extent of many thousands of 
feet — subsidence of so vast a character, in fact, 
that if a continent like Asia had once occupied 
the area of the Pacific, the peaks of its mountains 
would now show not more numerous than the 
islands of the Polynesian Archipelago. 3 

What lands may have been thickly populated 
for untold ages, and subsequently have disappeared 
and left no sign above the waters, it is of course 
impossible for us to say ; but unless we are to make 
the wholly unjustifiable assumption that no dry 
land rose elsewhere when our present dry land 
sank, there must be half-a-dozen Atlantises 
beneath the waves of the various oceans of the 
world. But if the regions which have undergone 

f 1 Later investigations tend to show that only a small part of 
the Sahara has been submerged. — 1894.] 

[ 2 With reference to certain reclamations that have been 
made apropos of a speculation set forth in the essay on the 
Aryan Question {infra), I draw attention to the fact that this 
passage was written twenty-nine years ago. — 1894.] 

P The occurrence of this extensive subsidence is disputed. — 
1894.] 



IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 251 

these slow and gradual, but immense alterations, 
were wholly or in part inhabited before the 
changes I have indicated began — and it is more 
probable that they were than that they were not — 
what a wonderfully efficient " Emigration Board " 
must have been at work all over the world long 
before canoes, or even rafts, were invented ; and 
before men were impelled to wander by any desire 
nobler or stronger than hunger. And as these 
rude and primitive families were thrust, in the 
course of long series of generations, from land 
to land, impelled by encroachments of sea or of 
marsh, or by severity of summer heat or winter 
cold, to change their positions, what opportunities 
must have been offered for the play of natural 
selection, in preserving one family variation and 
destroying another ! 

Suppose, for example, that some families of a 
horde which had reached a land charged with the 
seeds of yellow fever, varied in the direction of 
woolliness of hair and darkness of skin. Then, if 
it be true that these physical characters are 
accompanied by comparative or absolute exemp- 
tions from that scourge, the inevitable tendency 
would be to the preservation and multiplication of 
the darker and woollier families, and the elimi- 
nation of the whiter and smoother haired. In 
fact, by the operation of causes precisely similar to 
those which, in the famous instance cited by Mr. 
Darwin, have given rise to a race of black pigs in 



252 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 

the forests of Louisiana, a negro stock would even- 
tually people the region. 1 Again, how often, by- 
such physical changes, must a stock have been iso- 
lated from all others for innumerable generations, 
and have found ample time for the hereditary 
hardening of its special peculiarities into the 
enduring characters of a persistent modification. 
Nor, if it be true that the physiological differ- 
ences of species may be produced by variation and 
natural selection, as Mr. Darwin supposes, would it 
be at all astonishing, if, in some of these separated 
stocks, the process of differentiation should have 
gone so far as to give rise to the phenomena of 
hybridity. In the face of the overwhelming 
evidence in favour of the unity of the origin of 
mankind afforded by anatomical considerations, 
satisfactory proof of the existence of any degree of 
sterility in the unions of members of two of the 
" persistent modifications " of mankind, might well 
be appealed to by Mr. Darwin as crucial evidence 
of the truth of his views regarding the origin of 
species in general. 

P Mr. Pearson, in his very interesting work On National 
Life and Character, justly dwells upon the obstacles to the 
existence of the white races within the Tropics. There is, how- 
ever, this point to be considered, that the fevers to which the 
white men succumb are probably caused by microbes ; and that 
modern therapeutic science is daily teaching us more and more 
about the ways of obtaining immunity from or alleviating these 
attacks. What would become of black competition if fever 
" vaccination" proved effectual ?— 1894.] 



ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH 
ETHNOLOGY 

[1871] 

In view of the many discussions to which the 
complicated problems offered by the ethnology of 
the British Islands have given rise, it may be 
useful to attempt to pick out, from amidst the 
confused masses of assertion and of inference, 
those propositions which appear to rest upon a 
secure foundation, and to state the evidence by 
which they are supported. Such is the purpose 
of the present paper. 

Some of these well-based propositions relate to 
the physical characters of the people of Britain 
and their neighbours; while others concern the 
languages which they spoke. I shall deal, in the 
first place, with the physical questions. 

I. Eighteen hundred years ago the population of 
Britain comprised people of two types of complexion 



254 BHITISH ETHNOLOGY y 

— the one fair, and the other dark. The dark 
people resembled the Aquitani and the Iberians; 
the fair people were like the Belgie Gauls. 

The chief direct evidence of the truth of this 
proposition is the well-known passage of Tacitus : — 

"Ceterum Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, indigence 
an advecti, ut inter barbaros, parum compertum. Habitus corp- 
orum varii : atque ex eo argumenta : namque rutilse Caledoniam 
habitantium comae, magni artus, Germanicam originem assever- 
ant. Silurum colorati vultus et torti plerumque crines, et 
posita contra Hispania, Iberos veteres trajecisse, easque sedes 
occupasse, fidem faciunt. Proximi Gallis et similes sunt ; seu 
durante originis vi, seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, posit io 
cceli corporibus habitum dedit. In universum tamen sestimanti, 
Gallos vicinum solum occupasse, credibile est ; eorum sacra 
deprehendas, superstitionum persuasione ; sermo haud multum 
di versus." 1 

This passage, it will be observed, contains 
statements as to facts, and certain conclusions 
deduced from these facts. The matters of fact 
asserted are : firstly, that the inhabitants of 
Britain exhibit much diversity in their physical 
characters ; secondly, that the Caledonians are 
red-haired and large-limbed, like the Germans ; 
thirdly, that the Silures have curly hair and dark 
complexions, like the people of Spain ; fourthly, 
that the British people nearest Gaul resemble the 
" Galli." 

Tacitus, therefore, states positively what the 
Caledonians and Silures were like ; but the 

1 Tacitus Agricdla, c. 11. 



/ 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 255 

interpretation of what lie says about the other 
Britons must depend upon what we learn from 
other sources as to the characters of these 
" Galli." Here the testimony of " divus Julius " 
comes in with great force and appropriateness. 
Caesar writes : — 

" Britanniae pars interior abiis incolitur, quosnatos in insula 
ipsi memoria proditum dicunt : marituma pars ab iis, qui prsedse 
ac belli inferendi causa ex Belgio transierant ; qui omnes fere iis 
nominibus civitatum appellantur quibus orti ex civitatibus eo 
pervenerunt, et bello inlato ibi permanserunt atque 1 agros 
colere coeperunt." * \ 

:\ 

From these passages it is obvious that, in the 
opinion of Caesar and Tacitus, the southern Britons 
resembled the northern Gauls, and especially the 
Belgae ; and the evidence of Strabo is decisive as 
to the characters in which the two people resem- 
bled one another: "The men [of Britain] are 
taller than the Kelts, with hair less yellow ; they 
are slighter in their persons." 2 

The evidence adduced appears to leave no 
reasonable ground for doubting that, at the time 
of the Roman conquest, Britain contained people 
of two types, the one dark and the other fair com- 
plexioned, and that there was a certain difference 
between the latter in the north ^nd in the south 
of Britain : the northern folk beitag, in the judg- 

1 De Bello Galileo, v. 12. 
. 2 The Geography of Strabo. Translated \ by Hamilton and 
Falconer, v. 5. 



256 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v 

ment of Tacitus, or, more properly, according to 
the information he had received from Agricola 
and others, more similar to the Germans than the 
latter. As to the distribution of these stocks, all 
that is clear is, that the dark people were pre- 
dominant in certain parts of the west of the 
southern half of Britain, while the fair stock 
appears to have furnished the chief elements of 
the population elsewhere. 

No ancient writer troubled himself with mea- 
suring skulls, and therefore there is no direct 
evidence as to the cranial characters of the fair 
and the dark stocks. The indirect evidence is not 
very satisfactory. The tumuli of Britain of pre- 
Roman date have yielded two extremely different 
forms of skull, the one broad and the other long ; 
and the same variety has been observed in the 
skulls of the ancient Gauls. 1 The suggestion is 
obvious that the one form of skull may have been 
associated with the fair and the other with the 
dark, complexion. But any conclusion of this 
kind is at once checked by the reflection that the 
extremes of long and short-headedness are to be 
met with among the fair inhabitants of Germany 
and of Scandinavia at the present day — the south- 
western Germans and the Swiss being markedly 
broad-headed, while the Scandinavians are as 
predominantly long-headed. 

1 See Dr. Thurnam " On the Two principal Forms of Ancient 
British and Gaulish Skulls." 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 257 

What the natives of Ireland were like at the 
time of the Roman conquest of Britain, and for 
centuries afterwards, we have no certain know- 
ledge ; but the earliest trustworthy records prove 
the existence, side by side with one another, of a 
fair and a dark stock, in Ireland as in Britain. 
The long form of skull is predominant among the 
ancient, as among modern, Irish. 

II. The people termed Gauls, and those called 
Germans, by the Romans, did not differ in any 
important physical character. 

The terms in which the ancient writers describe 
both Gauls and Germans are identical. They are 
always tall people, with massive limbs, fair skins, 
fierce blue eyes, and hair the colour of which 
ranges from red to yellow. Zeuss, the great 
authority on these matters, affirms broadly that no 
distinction in bodily feature is to be found between 
the Gauls, the Germans, and the Wends, so far as 
their characters are recorded by the old historians ; 
and he proves his case by citations from a cloud of 
witnesses. 

An attempt has been made to show that the 
colour of the hair of the Gauls must have differed 
very much from that which obtained among the 
Germans, on the strength of the story told by 
Suetonius {Caligula, 4), that Caligula tried to pass 
off Gauls for Germans by picking out the tallest, 
and making then " rutilare et summittere 
comam." 

181 



258 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v 

The Baron de Belloguet remarks upon this 
passage : 

" It was in the very north of Gaul, and near the sea, that 
Caligula got up this military comedy. And the fact proves that 
the Belgae were already sensibly different from their ancestors, 
whom Strabo had found almost identical with their brothers on 
the other side of the Rhine. " 

But the fact recorded by Suetonius, if fact it be, 
proves nothing ; for the Germans themselves were 
in the habit of reddening their hair. Ammianus 
Marcellinus 1 tells how, in the year 367 A.D., the 
Roman commander, Jovinus, surprised a body of 
Alemanni near the town now called Charpeigne, in 
the valley of the Moselle ; and how the Roman 
soldiers, as, concealed by the thick wood, they 
stole upon their unsuspecting enemies, saw that 
some were bathing and others " comas rutilantes 
ex more." More than two centuries earlier Pliny 
gives indirect evidence to the same effect when 
he says of soap :— 

"Galliarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis . . . apud 
Germanos majore in usu viris quam fceminis." a 

Here we have a writer who flourished not 
very long after the date of the Caligula story, 
telling us that the Gauls invented soap for the 
purpose of doing that which, according to Sue- 
tonius, Caligula forced them to do. And, further 

1 Res Gestce xxvii. 2 Historic/, Naturalis, xxviii. 51. 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 259 

the combined and independent testimony of Pliny 
and Ammianus assures us that the Germans were 
as much in the habit of reddening their hair as 
the Gauls. As to De Belloguet's supposition that, 
even in Caligula's time, the Gauls had become 
darker than their ancestors were, it is directly 
contradicted by Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew 
the Gauls well. "Celsioris staturae et candidi 
poene Galli sunt omnes, et rutili, luminumque 
torvitate terribiles," is his description; and it 
would fit the Gauls who sacked Rome. 

III. In none of the invasions of Britain which 
have taken place since the Roman dominion, has 
any other type of man been introduced than one or 
other of the two ivhich existed during that dominion. 

The North Germans, who effected what is 
commonly called the Saxon conquest of Britain, 
were, most assuredly, a fair, yellow, or red-haired, 
blue-eyed, long-skulled people. So were the Danes 
and the Norsemen who followed them ; though it 
is very possible that the active slave trade which 
went on, and the intercourse with Ireland, may 
have introduced a certain admixture of the dark 
stock into both Denmark and Norway. The 
Norman conquest brought in new ethnological 
elements, the precise value of which cannot be 
estimated with exactness ; but as to their quality, 
there can be no question, inasmuch as even the 
wide area from which William drew his followers 
could yield him nothing but the fair and the dark 



260 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v 

types of men, already present in Britain. But 
whether the Norman settlers, on the whole, 
strengthened the fair or the dark element, is a 
problem, the elements of the solution of which 
are not attainable. 

I am unable to discover any grounds for believ- 
ing that a Lapp element has ever entered into the 
population of these islands. So far as the physical 
evidence goes, it is perfectly consistent with the 
hypothesis that the only constituent stocks of that 
population, now, or at any other period about 
which we have evidence, are the dark whites, 
whom I have proposed to call " Melanochroi," and 
the fair whites, or " Xanthochroi" 

IV. The Xanthochroi and the Melanochroi of 
Britain are, speaking "broadly, distributed, at 
present, as they were in the time of Tacitus ; and 
their representatives on the continent of Europe 
have the same general distribution as at the earliest 
period of which we have any record. 

At the present day, and notwithstanding the 
extensive intermixture effected by the movements 
consequent on civilization and on political changes, 
there is a predominance of dark men in the west, 
and of fair men in the east and north, of Britain. 
At the present day, as from the earliest times, the 
predominant constituents of the riverain popula- 
tion of the North Sea and the eastern half of the 
British Channel, are fair men. The fair stock 
continues in force through Central Europe, until 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 261 

it is lost in Central Asia. Offshoots of this stock 
extend into Spain, Italy, and Northern India, and 
by way of Syria and North Africa, to the Canary 
Islands. They were known in very early times to 
the Chinese, and in still earlier to the ancient 
Egyptians, as frontier tribes. The Thracians were 
notorious for their fair hair and blue eyes many 
centuries before our era. 

On the other hand, the dark stock predominates 
in Southern and Western France, in Spain, along 
the Ligurian shore, and in Western and Southern 
Italy ; in Greece, Asia, Syria, and North Africa ; 
in Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, and Hindostan, 
shading gradually, through all stages of darkening, 
into the type of the modern Egyptian, or of the 
wild Hill-man of the Dekkan. Nor is there any 
record of the existence of a different population 
in all these countries. 

The extreme north of Europe, and the northern 
part of Western Asia, are at present occupied by 
a Mongoloid stock, and, in the absence of evidence 
to the contrary, may be assumed to have been so 
peopled from a very remote epoch. But, as I 
have said, I can find no evidence that this stock 
ever took part in peopling Britain. Of the three 
great stocks of mankind which extend from the 
western coast of the great Eurasiatic continent to 
its southern and eastern shores, the Mongoloids 
occupy a vast triangle, the base of which is the 
whole of Eastern Asia, while its apex lies in 



262 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v 

Lapland. The Melanochroi, on the other hand, 
may be represented as a broad band stretching 
from Ireland to Hindostan; while the Xantho- 
chroic area lies between the two, thins out, so to 
speak, at either end, and mingles, at its margins, 
with both its neighbours. 

Such is a brief and summary statement of what 
I believe to be the chief facts relating to the 
physical ethnology of the people of Britain. The 
conclusions which I draw from these and other 
facts are — (1) That the Melanochroi and the 
Xanthochroi are two separate races in the bio- 
logical sense of the word race ; (2) That they have 
had the same general distribution as at present 
from the earliest times of which any record exists 
on the continent of Europe ; (3) That the popula- 
tion of the British Islands is derived from them, 
and from them only. 

The people of Europe, however, owe their 
national names, not to their physical character- 
istics, but to their languages, or to their political 
relations ; which, it is plain, need not have the 
slightest relation to these characteristics. 

Thus, it is quite certain that, in Caesars time, 
Gaul was divided politically into three nationali- 
ties — the Belgae, the Celtse, and the Aquitani ; 
and that the last were very widely different, both 
in language and in physical characteristics, from 
the two former. The Belgse and the Celtse, on 
the other hand, differed comparatively little either 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 263 

in physique or in language. On the former point 
there is the distinct testimony of Strabo ; as to the 
latter, St. Jerome states that the " Galatians had 
almost the same language as the Treviri." Now, the 
Galatians were emigrant Volcae Tectosages, and 
therefore Celtse ; while the Treviri were Belgae. 1 

At the present day, the physical characters of 
the people of Belgic Gaul remain distinct from 
those of the people of Aquitaine, notwithstanding 
the immense changes which have taken place 
since Caesar's time ; but BelgaB, Celtae, and Aqui- 
tani (all but a mere fraction of the last two, 
represented by the Basques and the Bretons) are 
fused into one nationality, a le peuple Fran^ais." 
But they have adopted the language of one 
set of invaders, and the name of another ; their 
original names and languages having almost dis- 
appeared. Suppose that the French language 
remained as the sole evidence of the existence of 
the population of Gaul, would the keenest philo- 
loger arrive at any other conclusion than that this 
population was essentially and fundamentally a 
" Latin " race, which had had some communica- 
tion with Celts and Teutons ? Would he so much 
as suspect the former existence of the Aquitani ? 

Community of language testifies to close contact 

between the people who speak the language, but 

to nothing else ; philology has absolutely nothing 

to do with ethnology, except so far as it suggests 

[ ! This proposition is disputed. — 1894.] 



264 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY y 

the existence or the absence of such contact. 
The contrary assumption, that language is a test 
of race, has introduced the utmost confusion into 
ethnological speculation, and has nowhere worked 
greater scientific and practical mischief than in 
the ethnology of the British Islands. 

What is known, for certain, about the languages 
spoken in these islands and their affinities may, I 
believe, be summed up as follows : — 

I. At the time of the Roman conquest, one language, 
the Celtic, tender two principal dialectical divisions, 
the Cymric and the Gaelic, was spoken throughout 
the British Islands. Cymric was spoken in Britain, 
Gaelic 1 in Ireland. 

If a language allied to Basque had in earlier 
times been spoken in the British Islands, there is 
no evidence that any Euskarian-speaking people 
remained at the time of the Roman conquest. 
The dark and the fair population of Britain alike 
spoke Celtic tongues, and therefore the name 
"Celt" is as applicable to the one as to the 
other. 

What was spoken in Ireland can only be sur- 
mised by reasoning from the knowledge of later 
times ; but there seems to be no doubt that it was 
Gaelic. 

P I have been told that the terms •'* Cymric" and "Gaelic" 
are antiquated and improper. The reader will please substitute 
Celtic dialect A and Celtic dialect B for them, and consult, on 
this subject, especially with regard to proposition III., Professor 
Rhys' Early Britain.— 1894.] 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 265 

II. The Belgce and the Cellce, with the offshoots 
of the latter in Asia Minor, spoke dialects of the 
Cymric division of Celtic. 

The evidence of this proposition lies in the 
statement of St. Jerome before cited ; in the 
similarity of the names of places in Belgic Gaul 
and in Britain; and in the direct comparison of 
sundry ancient Gaulish and Belgic words which 
have been preserved, with the existing Cymric 
dialects, for which I must refer to the learned 
work of Brandes. 

Formerly, as at the present day, the Cymric 
dialects of Celtic were spoken by both the fair 
and the dark stocks. 

III. There is no record of Gaelic "being spoken 
anywhere save in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of 
Man. 

This appears to be the final result of the long 
discussions which have taken place on this much- 
debated question. As is the case with the Cymric 
dialects, Gaelic is now spoken by both dark and 
fair stocks. 

IV. When the Teutonic languages first became 
known, they 'were spoken only 1 by Xanthochroi, that 
is to say, by the Germans, the Scandinavians, and 
Goths. And they were imported by Xanthochroi 
into Gaul and into Britain. 

In Gaul, the imported Teutonic dialect has been 

f 1 " Only " is too strong a word, as there were doubtless some 
Melanochroi among the Teutonic tribes. — 1894.] 



266 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v 

completely overpowered by the more or less 
modified Latin, which it found already in posses- 
sion ; and what Teutonic blood there may be in 
modern Frenchmen is not adequately represented 
in their language. In Britain, on the contrary, 
the Teutonic dialects have overpowered the pre- 
existing forms of speech, and the people are vastly 
less " Teutonic " than their language. Whatever 
may have been the extent to which the Celtic- 
speaking population of the eastern half of Britain 
was trodden out and supplanted by the Teutonic- 
speaking Saxons and Danes, it is quite certain 
that no considerable displacement of the Celtic- 
speaking people occurred in Cornwall, Wales, or 
the Highlands of Scotland; and that nothing 
approaching to the extinction of that people took 
place in Devonshire, Somerset, or the western 
moiety of Britain generally. Nevertheless, the 
fundamentally Teutonic English language is now 
spoken throughout Britain, except by an insignifi- 
cant fraction of the population in Wales and the 
Western Highlands. But it is obvious that this 
fact affords not the slightest justification for the 
common practice of speaking of the present in- 
habitants of Britain as an "Anglo-Saxon" race. 
It is, in fact, just as absurd as the habit of talking 
of the French people as a " Latin " race, because 
they speak a language which is, in the main, 
derived from Latin. And the absurdity becomes 
the more patent when those who have no hesita- 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 267 

tion in calling a Devonshire man, or a Cornish 
man, an " Anglo-Saxon/' would think it ridiculous 
to call a Tipperary man by the same title, though 
he and his forefathers may have spoken English 
for as long a time as the Cornish man. 

Ireland, at the earliest period of which we 
have any knowledge, contained, like Britain, a 
dark and a fair stock, which, there is every reason 
to believe, were identical with the dark and the 
fair stocks of Britain. When the Irish first became 
known they spoke a Gaelic dialect, and though, 
for many centuries, Scandinavians made continual 
incursions upon, and settlements among them, the 
Teutonic languages made no more way among the 
Irish than they did among the French. How 
much Scandinavian blood was introduced there is 
no evidence to show. But after the conquest of 
Ireland by Henry II., the English people, consisting 
in part of the descendants of Cymric speakers, and 
in part of the descendants of Teutonic speakers, 
made good their footing in the eastern half of the 
island, as the Saxons and Danes made good theirs 
in England ; and did their best to complete the 
parallel by attempting the extirpation of the 
Gaelic-speaking Irish. And they succeeded to a 
considerable extent; a large part of Eastern 
Ireland is now peopled by men who are sub- 
stantially English by descent, and the English 
language has spread over the land far beyond the 
limits of English blood. 



268 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v 

Ethnologically, the Irish people were originally, 
like the people of Britain, a mixture of Melano- 
chroi and Xanthochroi. They resembled the 
Britons in speaking a Celtic tongue ; but it was a 
Gaelic and not a Cymric form of the Celtic lan- 
guage. Ireland was untouched by the Roman 
conquest, nor do the Saxons seem to have had any 
influence upon her destinies, but the Danes and 
Norsemen poured in a contingent of Teutonism, 
which has been largely supplemented by English 
and Scotch efforts. 

What, then, is the value of the ethnological 
difference between the Englishman of the western 
half of England and the Irishman of the eastern 
half of Ireland ? For what reason does the one 
deserve the name of a " Celt," and not the other ? 
And further, if we turn to the inhabitants of the 
western half of Ireland, why should the term 
"Celts" be applied to them more than to the 
inhabitants of Cornwall ? And if the name is 
applicable to the one as justly as to the other, why 
should not intelligence, perseverance, thrift, in- 
dustry, sobriety, respect for law, be admitted to be 
Celtic virtues ? And why should we not seek for 
the cause of their absence in something else than 
the idle pretext of " Celtic blood " ? 

I have been unable to meet with any answers 
to these questions. 

V. The Celtic and the Teutonic dialects are 
members of the same great Aryan family of Ian- 



V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 2G9 

gtcagcs ; hut there is evidence to show that a non- 
Aryan language was at one time spoken over a, 
large extent of the area occupied by Mclanochroi in 
Europe. 

The non- Aryan language here referred to is the 
Euskarian, now spoken only by the Basques, but 
which seems in earlier times to have been the 
language of the Aquitanians and Spaniards, and 
may possibly have extended much further to the 
East. Whether it has any connection with the 
Ligurian and Oscan dialects are questions upon 
which, of course, I do not presume to offer any 
opinion. But it is important to remark that it 
is a language the area of which has gradually 
diminished without any corresponding extirpation 
of the people who primitively spoke it ; so that the 
people of Spain and of Aquitaine at the present 
day must be largely " Euskarian " by descent in 
just the same sense as the Cornish men are 
" Celtic " by descent. 

Such seem to me to be the main facts respect- 
ing the ethnology of the British islands and of 
Western Europe, which may be said to be fairly 
established. The hypothesis by which I think 
(with De Belloguet and Thurnam) the facts may 
best be explained is this : In very remote times 
Western Europe and the British islands were 
inhabited by the dark stock, or the Melanochroi, 
alone, and these Melanochroi spoke dialects allied 
to the Euskarian. The Xanthochroi, spreading 



270 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v 

over the great Eurasiatic plains westward, and 
speaking Aryan dialects, gradually invaded the 
territories of the Melanochroi. The Xanthochroi, 
who thus came into contact with the Western 
Melanochroi, spoke a Celtic language ; and that 
Celtic language, whether Cymric or Gaelic, spread 
over the Melanochroi far beyond the limits of 
intermixture of blood, supplanting Euskarian, just 
as English and French have supplanted Celtic. 
Even as early as Caesar's time, I suppose that the 
Euskarian was everywhere, except in Spain and in 
Aquitaine, replaced by Celtic, and thus the Celtic 
speakers were no longer of one ethnological stock, 
but of two. Both in Western Europe and in 
England a third wave of language— in the one 
case Latin, in the other Teutonic — has spread over 
the same area. In Western Europe, it has left a 
fragment of the primary Euskarian in one corner 
of the country, and a fragment of the secondary 
Celtic in another. In the British islands, only 
outlying pools of the secondary linguistic wave 
remain in Wales, the Highlands, Ireland, and the 
Isle of Man. If this hypothesis is a sound one, it 
follows that the name of Celtic is not properly 
applicable to the Melanochroic or dark stock of 
Europe. They are merely, so to speak, secondary 
Celts. The primary and aboriginal Celtic-speaking 
people are Xanthochroi — the typical Gauls of the 
ancient writers, and the close allies by blood, 
customs, and language, of the Germans. 



VI 

THE ARYAN QUESTION AND PRE- 
HISTORIC MAN 

[1890] 

The rapid increase of natural knowledge, which 
is the chief characteristic of our age, is effected in 
various ways. The main army of science moves 
to the conquest of new worlds slowly and surely, 
nor ever cedes an inch of the territory gained. 
But the advance is covered and facilitated by the 
ceaseless activity of clouds of light troops provided 
with a weapon — always efficient, if not always an 
arm of precision — the scientific imagination. It 
is the business of these enfants perdus of science 
to make raids into the realm of ignorance where- 
ever they see, or think they see, a chance ; and 
cheerfully to accept defeat, or it may be annihila- 
tion, as the reward of error. Unfortunately, the 
public, which watches the progress of the cam- 
paign, too often mistakes a dashing incursion of 
the Uhlans for a forward movement of the main 



272 THE ARYAN QUESTION \i 

body ; fondly imagining that the strategic move- 
ment to the rear, which occasionally follows, in- 
dicates a battle lost by science. And it must be 
confessed that the error is too often justified by 
the effects of the irrepressible tendency which 
men of science share with all other sorts of men 
known to me, to be impatient of that most whole- 
some state of mind — suspended judgment ; to 
assume the objective truth of speculations which, 
from the nature of the evidence in their favour, 
can have no claim to be more than working hypo- 
theses. 

The history of the " Aryan question " affords a 
striking illustration of these general remarks. 

About a century ago, Sir William Jones pointed 
out the close alliance of the chief European 
languages with Sanskrit and its derivative dia- 
lects now spoken in India. Brilliant and laborious 
philologists, in long succession, enlarged and 
strengthened this position, until the truth that 
Sanskrit, Zend, Armenian, Greek, Latin, Lithua- 
nian, Slavonian, German, Celtic, and so on, stand 
to one another in the relation of descendants from 
a common stock, became firmly established, and 
thenceforward formed part of the permanent 
acquisitions of science. Moreover, the term 
"Aryan" is very generally, if not universally, 
accepted as a name for the group of languages 
thus allied. Hence, when one speaks of " Aryan 
languages/' no hypothetical assumptions are in- 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 273 

volved. It is a matter of fact that such languages 
exist, that they present certain substantial and 
formal relations, and that convention sanctions 
the name applied to them. But the close con- 
nection of these widely differentiated languages 
remains altogether inexplicable, unless it is ad- 
mitted that they are modifications of an original 
relatively undifferentiated tongue ; just as the 
intimate affinities of the Romance languages — 
French, Italian, Spanish, and the rest — would be 
incomprehensible if there were no Latin. The 
original or " primitive Aryan " tongue, thus postu- 
lated, unfortunately no longer exists. It is a hypo- 
thetical entity, which corresponds with the " primi- 
tive stock " of generic and higher groups among 
plants and animals ; and the acknowledgment of 
its former existence, and of the process of evolu- 
tion which has brought about the present state 
of things philological, is forced upon us by 
deductive reasoning of similar cogency to that 
employed about things biological. 

Thus, the former existence of a body of re- 
latively uniform dialects, which may be called 
primitive Aryan, may be added to the stock of 
definitely acquired truths. But it is obvious that, 
in the absence of writing or of phonographs, the 
existence of a language implies that of speakers. 
If there were primitive Aryan dialects, there 
must have been primitive Aryan people who 
used them ; and these people must have resided 

\82 



274 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

somewhere or other on the earth's surface. Hence 
philology, without stepping beyond its legitimate 
bounds and keeping speculation within the limits 
of bare necessity, arrives, not only, at the con- 
ceptions of Aryan languages and of a primitive 
Aryan language ; but of a primitive Aryan people 
and of a primitive Aryan home, or country occupied 
by them. 

But where was this home of the Aryans ? When 
the labours of modern philologists began, Sanskrit 
was the most archaic of all the Aryan languages 
known to them. It appeared to present the 
qualifications required in the parental or primitive 
Aryan. Brilliant Uhlans made a charge at this 
opening. The scientific imagination seated the 
primitive Aryans in the valley of the Ganges ; and 
showed, as in a vision, the successive columns, 
guided by enterprising Brahmins, which set out 
thence to people the regions of the western world 
with Greeks and Celts and Germans. But the 
progress of philology itself sufficed to show that 
this Balaclava charge, however magnificent, was 
not profitable warfare. The internal evidence of 
the Vedas proved that their composers had not 
reached the Ganges. On the other hand, the 
comparison of Zend with Sanskrit left no 
alternative open to the assumption that these 
languages were modifications of an original Indo- 
Iranian tongue, spoken by a people of whom the 
Aryans of India and those of Persia were offshoots, 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 275 

and wlio could therefore be hardly lodged else- 
where than on the frontiers of both Persia and 
India — that is to say, somewhere in the region 
which is at present known under the names of 
Turkestan, Afghanistan, and Kafiristan. Thus 
far, it can hardly be doubted that we are well 
within the ground of which science has taken 
enduring possession. But the Uhlans were not 
content to remain within the lines of this surely- 
won position. For some reason, which is not quite 
clear to me, they thought fit to restrict the home of 
the primitive Aryans to a particular part of the 
region in question ; to lodge them amidst the bleak 
heights of the long range of the Hindoo Koosh 
and on the inhospitable plateau of Pamir. From 
their hives in these secluded valleys and wind- 
swept wastes, successive swarms of Celts and 
Greco-Latins, Teutons and Slavs, were thrown off 
to settle, after long wanderings, in distant Europe. 
The Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir theory, once enunciated, 
gradually hardened into a sort of dogma; and 
there have not been wanting theorists, who laid 
down the routes of the successive bands of emi- 
grants with as much confidence as if they had access 
to the records of the office of a primitive Aryan 
Quartermaster-General. It is really singular to 
observe the deference which has been shown, and 
is yet sometimes shown, to a speculation which 
can, at best, claim to be regarded as nothing better 
than a somewhat risky working hypothesis. 



276 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

Forty years ago, the credit of the Hindoo- 
Koosh-Pamir theory had risen almost to that of 
an axiom. The first person to instil doubt of its 
value into my mind was the late Robert Gordon 
Latham, a man of great learning and singular 
originality, whose attacks upon the Hindoo- 
Kooshite doctrine could scarcely have failed as 
completely as they did, if his great powers had 
been bestowed upon making his books not only 
worthy of being read, but readable. The im- 
pression left upon my mind, at that time, by 
various conversations about the " Sarmatian hypo- 
thesis," which my friend wished to substitute for 
the Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir speculation, was that 
the one and the other rested pretty much upon a 
like foundation of guess-work. That there was 
no sufficient reason for planting the primitive 
Aryans in the Hindoo Koosh, or in Pamir, seemed 
plain enough ; but that there was little better 
ground, on the evidence then adduced, for settling 
them in the region at present occupied by Western 
Russia, or Podolia, appeared to me to be not less 
plain. The most I thought Latham proved was, 
that the Aryan people of Indo-Iranian speech 
were just as likely to have come from Europe, as 
the Aryan people of Greek, or Teutonic, or Celtic 
speech from Asia. Of late years, Latham's views, 
so long neglected, or mentioned merely as an 
example of insular eccentricity, have been taken 
up and advocated with much ability in Germany 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 277 

as well as in this country — principally by philo- 
logists. Indeed, the glory of Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir 
seems altogether to have departed. Professor 
Max Miiller, to whom Aryan philology owes so 
much, will not say more now, than that he holds 
by the conviction that the seat of the primitive 
Aryans was u somewhere in Asia." Dr. Schrader 
sums up in favour of European Russia; while 
Herr Penka would have us transplant the home 
of the primitive Aryans from Pamir in the far 
east to the Scandinavian peninsula in the far west. 
I must refer those who desire to acquaint 
themselves with the philological arguments on 
which these conclusions are based to the recently 
published works of Dr. Schrader and Canon Tay- 
lor ; x and to Penka's " Die Herkunft der Arier," 
which, in spite of the strong spice of the Uhlan 
which runs through it, I have found extremely 
well worth study. I do not pretend to be able to 
look at the Aryan question under any but the 
biological aspect ; to which I now turn. 

Any biologist who studies the history of the 
Aryan question, and, taking the philological facts 
on trust, regards it exclusively from the point of 
view of anthropology, will observe that, very 
early, the purely biological conception of " race " 

1 Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples. 
Translated by F. B. Jevons, M.A., 1890. Taylor, The Origin 
of the Aryans, 1890. 



278 THE ARYAN QUESTION ti 

illegitimately mixed itself up with the ideas de- 
rived from pure philology. It is quite proper to 
speak of Aryan "people/' because, as we have 
seen, the existence of the language implies that of 
a people who speak it ; it might be equally per- 
missible to call Latin people all those who speak 
Romance dialects. But, just as the application of 
the term Latin " race " to the divers people who 
speak Romance languages, at the present day, is 
none the less absurd because it is common ; so, it 
is quite possible, that it may be equally wrong to 
call the people who spoke the primitive Aryan 
dialects and inhabited the primitive home, the 
Aryan race. " Aryan " is properly a term of 
classification used in philology. " Race " is the 
name of a sub-division of one of those groups of 
living things which are called " species " in the 
technical language of Zoology and Botany; and 
the term connotes the possession of p characters 
distinct from those of the other members of the 
species, which have a strong tendency to appear 
in the progeny of all members of the races. 
Such race-characters may be either bodily or men- 
tal, though in practice, the latter, as less easy of 
observation and definition, can rarely be taken 
into account. Language is rooted half in the 
bodily and half in the mental nature of man. The 
vocal sounds which form the raw materials of 
language could not be produced without a peculiar 
conformation of the organs of speech ; the enuncia- 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 279 

tion of duly accented syllables would be impossible 
without the nicest co-ordination of the action of 
the muscles which move these organs ; and such 
co-ordination depends on the mechanism of certain 
portions of the nervous system. It is therefore 
conceivable that the structure of this highly com- 
plex speaking apparatus should determine a man's 
linguistic potentiality ; that is to say, should 
enable him to use a language of one class and not 
of another. It is further conceivable that a par- 
ticular linguistic potentiality should be inherited 
and become as good a race mark as any other. As 
a matter of fact, it is not proven that the linguis- 
tic potentialities of all men are the same. It is 
affirmed, for example, that, in the United States, 
the enunciation and the timbre of the voice of an 
American-born negro, however thoroughly he may 
have learned English, can be readily distinguished 
from that of a white man. But, even admitting 
that differences may obtain among the various 
races of men, to this extent, I do not think that 
there is any good ground for the supposition that 
an infant of any race would be unable to learn, 
and to use with ease, the language of any other 
race of men among whom it might be brought 
up. History abundantly proves the transmission 
of languages from some races to others ; and there 
is no evidence, that I know of, to show that any 
race is incapable of substituting a foreign idiom 
for its native tongue. 

From these considerations it follows that com- 



280 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

munity of language is no proof of unity of race, is 
not even presumptive evidence of racial identity. 1 
All that it does prove is that, at some time or 
other, free and prolonged intercourse has taken 
place between the speakers of the same language. 
Philology, therefore, while it may have a perfect 
right to postulate the existence of a primitive 
Aryan "people," has no business to substitute 
" race " for " people." The speakers of primitive 
Aryan may have been a mixture of two or more 
races, just as are the speakers of English and 
of French, at the present time. 

The older philological ethnologists felt the 
difficulty which arose out of their identification of 
linguistic with racial affinity, but were not dis- 
mayed by it. Strong in the prestige of their 
great discovery of the unity of the Aryan tongues, 
they were quite prepared to make the philological 
and the biological categories fit, by the exercise 
of a little pressure on that about which they 
knew less. And their judgment was often un- 

1 Canon Taylor ( Origin of the Aryans, p 31 ) states that ' ' Cnno 
.... was the first to insist on what is now looked on as an axiom 
in ethnology — that race is not co-extensive with language," in 
a work published in 1871. I may be permitted to quote a 
passage from a lecture delivered on the 9th of January, 1870, 
which brought me into a great deal of trouble. "Physical, 
mental, and moral peculiarities go with blood and not with 
language. In the United States the negroes have spoken 
English for generations ; but no one on that ground would call 
them Englishmen, or expect them to differ physically, mentally, 
or morally from other negroes. " — Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 10, 
1870. But the " axiom in ethnology " had been implied, if not 
enunciated, before my time ; for example, by Desmoulins in 
1826 (See above p. 215.) 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 281 

consciously warped by strong monogenistic pro- 
clivities, which, at bottom, however respectable 
and philanthropic their origin, had nothing to 
do with science. So the patent fact that men 
of Aryan speech presented widely diverse racial 
characters was explained away by maintaining 
that the physical differentiation was post-Aryan ; 
to put it broadly, that the Aryans in Hindoo- 
Koosh-Pamir were truly of one race; but that, 
while one colony, subjected to the sweltering 
heat of the Gangetic plains, had fined down and 
darkened into the Bengalee, another had bleached 
and shot up, under the cool and misty skies of the 
north, into the semblance of Pomeranian Grena- 
diers ; or of blue-eyed, fair-skinned, six-foot Scotch 
Highlanders. I do not know that any of the 
Uhlans who fought so vigorously under this flag 
are left now. I doubt if any one is prepared to 
say that he believes that the influence of external 
conditions, alone, accounts for the wide physical 
differences between Englishmen and Bengalese. 
So far as India is concerned, the internal evidence 
of the old literature sufficiently proves that the 
Aryan invaders were " white " men. It is hardly 
to be doubted that they intermixed with the 
dark Dravidian aborigines ; and that the high- 
caste Hindoos are what they are in virtue of the 
Aryan blood which they have inherited, 1 and of 

1 I am unable to discover good grounds for the severity of 
the criticism, in the name of " the anthropologists," with which 
Professor Max Miiller's assertion that the same blood runs in the 



282 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

the selective influence of their surroundings 
operating on the mixture. 

The assumption that, as there must have been 
a primitive Aryan people, in the philological sense, 
so that people must have constituted a race in the 
biological sense, is pretty generally made in mod- 
ern discussions of the Aryan problem. But 
whether the men of the primitive Aryan race 
were blonds or brunets, whether they had long or 
round heads, were tall or were short, are hotly 
debated questions, into the discussion of which 
considerations quite foreign to science are some- 
times imported. The combination of swarthiness 
with stature above the average and a long skull, 
confer upon me the serene impartiality of a mon- 
grel; and, having given this pledge of fair dealing, 
I proceed to state the case for the hypothesis I am 
inclined to adopt. In doing so, I am aware that 
I deliberately take the shilling of the recruiting 
sergeant of the Light Brigade, and I warn all and 
sundry that such is the case. 

Looking at the discussions which have taken 

veins of English soldiers " as in the veins of the dark Bengalese," 
and that there is " a legitimate relationship between Hindoo, 
Greek, and Teuton," has been visited. So far as I know any- 
thing about anthropology, I should say that these statements 
may be correct literally, and probably are so substantially. I 
do not know of any good reason for the physical differences 
between a high-caste Hindoo and a Dra vidian, except the Aryan 
blood in the veins of the former; and the strength of the infusion 
is probably quite as great in some Hindoos as in some English 
soldiers. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 283 

place from a purely anthropological point of 
view, the first point which has struck me is 
that the problem is far more complicated and 
difficult than many of the disputants appear 
to imagine ; and the second, that the data 
upon which we have to go are grievously in- 
sufficient in extent and in precision. Our histori- 
cal records cover such an infinitesimally small 
extent of the past life of humanity, that we obtain 
little help from them. Even so late as 1500 B.C., 
northern Eurasia lies in historical darkness, ex- 
cept for such glimmer of light as may be thrown 
here and there by the literatures of Egypt and of 
Babylonia. Yet, at that time, it is probable that 
Sanskrit, Zend, and Greek, to say nothing of other 
Aryan tongues, had long been differentiated from 
primitive Aryan. Even a thousand years later, 
little enough accurate information is to be had 
about the racial characters of the European and 
Asiatic tribes known to the Greeks. We are 
thrown upon such resources as archaeology and 
human palaeontology have to offer, and notwith- 
standing the remarkable progress made of late 
years, they are still meagre. Nevertheless, it 
strikes me that, from the purely anthropological 
side, there is a good deal to be said in favour of 
the two propositions maintained by the new 
school of philologists ; first, that the people who 
spoke " primitive Aryan " were a distinct and 
well-marked race of mankind ; and, secondly, that 



284 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

the area of the distribution of this race, in prim- 
aeval times, lay in Europe, rather than in Asia. 

For the last two thousand years, at least; the 
southern half of Scandinavia and the opposite or 
southern shores of the Baltic have been occupied 
by a race of mankind possessed of very definite 
characters. Typical specimens have tall and 
massive frames, fair complexions, blue eyes, and 
yellow or reddish hair — that is to say, they are 
pronounced blonds. Their skulls are long, in the 
sense that the breadth is usually less, often much 
less, than four-fifths of the length, and they are 
usually tolerably high. But in this last respect 
they vary. Men of this blond, long-headed race 
abound from eastern Prussia to northern Belgium ; 
they are met with in northern France and are 
common in some parts of our own islands. The 
people of Teutonic speech, Goths, Saxons, Ale- 
manni, and Franks, who poured forth out of the 
regions bordering the North Sea and the Baltic, to 
the destruction of the Roman Empire, were men 
of this race ; and the accounts of the ancient his- 
torians of the incursions of the Gauls into Italy 
and Greece, between the fifth and the second 
centuries B.C., leave little doubt that their hordes 
were largely, if not wholly, composed of similar 
men. The contents of numerous interments in 
southern Scandinavia prove that, as far back as 
archaeology takes us into the so-called neolithic 
age, the great majority of the inhabitants had the 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 285 

same stature and cranial peculiarities as at 
present, though their bony fabric bears marks of 
somewhat greater ruggedness and savagery. There 
is no evidence that the country was occupied by 
men before the advent of these tall, bloud long- 
heads. But there is proof of the presence, along 
with the latter, of a small percentage of people 
with broad skulls ; skulls, that is, the breadth of 
which is more, often very much more, than four- 
fifths of the length. 

At the present day, in whatever direction we 
travel inland from the continental area occupied 
by the blond long-heads, whether south-west, into 
central France ; south, through the Walloon pro- 
vinces of Belgium into eastern France ; into 
Switzerland, South Germany, and the Tyrol ; or 
south-east, into Poland and Russia; or north, into 
Finland and Lapland, broad-heads make their 
appearance, in force, among the long-heads. And, 
eventually, we find ourselves among people who 
are as regularly broad-headed as the Swedes and 
North Germans are long-headed. As a general 
rule, in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and South 
Germany, the increase in the proportion of broad 
skulls is accompanied by the appearance of a larger 
and larger proportion of men of brunet com- 
plexion and of a lower stature ; until, in central 
France and thence eastwards, through the Ceven- 
nes and the Alps of Dauphiny, Savoy, and Pied- 
mont, to the western plains of North Italy, the 



286 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

tall blond long-heads 1 practically disappear, and 
are replaced by short brunet broad-heads. TLe 
ordinary Savoyard may be described in terms 
the converse of those which apply to the 
ordinary Swede. He is short, swarthy, dark-eyed, 
dark-haired, and his skull is very broad. Between 
the two extreme types, the one seated on the 
shores of the North Sea and the Baltic, and the 
other on those of the Mediterranean, there are all 
sorts of intermediate forms, in which breadth of 
skull may be found in tall and in short blond men, 
and in tall brunet men. 

There is much reason to believe that the brunet 
broad-heads, now met with in central France and 
in the west central European highlands, have in- 
habited the same region, not only throughout the 
historical period, but long before it commenced ; 
and it is probable that their area of occupation 
was formerly more extensive. For, if we leave 



1 I may plead the precedent of the- good English words 
"block-head" and "thick-head" for "broad-head" and "long- 
head," but I cannot say that they are elegant. I might have 
employed the technical terms brachycephali and dolichocephali. 
But it cannot be said that they are much more graceful ; and, 
moreover, they are sometimes employed in senses different from 
that which I have given in the definition of broad -heads and 
long-heads. The cephalic index is a number which expresses the 
relation of the breadth to the length of a skull, taking the 
latter as 100. Therefore "broad-heads" have the cephalic 
index above 80 and " long-heads " have it below 80. The phy- 
siological value of the difference is unknown ; its morphological 
value depends upon the observed fact of the constancy of the 
occurrence of either long skulls or broad skulls among large 
bodies of mankind. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 287 

aside the comparatively late incursions of the 
Asiatic races, the centre of eruption of the invaders 
of the southern moiety of Europe has been 
situated in the north and west. In the case of the 
Teutonic inroads upon the Empire of Eome, it 
undoubtedly lay in the area now occupied by the 
blond long-heads ; and, in that of the antecedent 
Gaulish invasions, the physical characters ascribed 
to the leading tribes point to the same conclusion. 
Whatever the causes which led to the breaking 
out of bounds of the blond long-heads, in mass, at 
particular epochs, the natural increase in numbers 
of a vigorous and fertile race must always have 
impelled them to press upon their neighbours, 
and thereby afford abundant occasions for inter- 
mixture. If, at any given pre-historic time, w^e 
suppose the lowlands verging on the Baltic and 
the North Sea to have been inhabited by pure 
blond long-heads, while the central highlands were 
occupied by pure brunet short-heads, the two 
would certainly meet and intermix in course of 
time, in spite of the vast belt of dense forest 
which extended, almost uninterruptedly, from the 
Carpathians to the Ardennes; and the result 
would be such an irregular gradation of the one 
type into the other as we do, in fact, meet with. 

On the south-east, east, and north-east, through- 
out what was once the kingdom of Poland, and in 
Finland, the preponderance of broad -heads goes 
along with a wide prevalence of blond complexion 



288 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

and of good stature. In the extreme north, on 
the other hand, marked broad-headedness is com- 
bined with low stature, swarthiness, and more or 
less strongly mongolian features, in the Lapps. 
And it is to be observed that this type prevails 
increasingly to the eastward, among the central 
Asiatic populations. 

The population of the British Islands, at the 
present time, offers the two extremes of the tall 
blond and the short brunet types. The tall blond 
long-heads resemble those of the continent ; but 
our short brunet race is long-headed. Brunet 
broad-heads, such as those met with in the 
central European highlands, do not exist among 
us. This absence of any considerable number of 
distinctly broad-headed people (say with the 
cephalic index above 81 or 82) in the modern 
population of the United Kingdom is the more 
remarkable, since the investigations of the late Dr. 
Thurnam, and others, proved the existence of a 
large proportion of tall broad-heads among the 
people interred in British tumuli of the neolithic 
age. It would seem that these broad-skulled 
immigrants have been absorbed by an older long- 
skulled population; just as, in South Germany, 
the long-headed Alemanni have been absorbed by 
the older broad-heads. ' The short brunet long- 
heads are not peculiar to our islands. On the 
contrary, they abound in western France and in 
Spain, while they predominate in Sardinia, Corsica, 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 289 

and South Italy, and, it may be, occupied a much 
larger area in ancient times. 

Thus, in the region which has been under con- 
sideration, there are evidences of the existence of 
four races of men — (1) blond long-heads of tall 
stature, (2) brunet broad-heads of short stature, (3) 
mongoloid brunet broad-heads of short stature, (4) 
brunet long-heads of short stature. The regions 
in which these races appear with least admixture 
are — (1) Scandinavia, North Germany, and parts 
of the British Islands; (2) central France, the 
central European highlands, and Piedmont; (3) 
Arctic and eastern Europe, central Asia ; (4) the 
western parts of the British Islands and of France ; 
Spain, South Italy. And the inhabitants of the 
localities which lie between these foci present the 
intermediate gradations, such as short blond 
long-heads, and tall brunet short-heads and long- 
heads which might be expected to result from 
their intermixture. The evidence at present extant 
is consistent with the supposition that the blond 
long-heads, the brunet broad-heads, and the brunet 
long-heads have existed in Europe throughout 
historic times, and very far back into pre-historic 
times. There is no proof of any migration of 
Asiatics into Europe, west of the basin of the 
Dnieper, down to the time of Attila. On the 
contrary, the first great movements of the 
European population of which there is any con- 
clusive evidence is that series of Gaulish invasions 

183 



290 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

of the east and south, which ultimately extended 
from North Italy as far as Galatia in Asia Minor. 

It is now time to consider the relations between 
the phenomena of racial distribution, as thus de- 
fined, and those of the distribution of languages. 
The blond long-heads of Europe speak, or have 
spoken, Lithuanian, Teutonic, or Celtic dialects, 
and they are not known to have ever used any 
but these Aryan languages. A large proportion 
of the brunet broad-heads once spoke the Ligu- 
rian and the Rhaetic dialects, which are believed 
to have been non- Aryan. But, when the Romans 
made acquaintance with Transalpine Gaul, the 
inhabitants of that country between the Garonne 
and the Seine (Caesar's Celtica) seem, at any rate 
for the most part, to have spoken Celtic dialects. 
The brunet long-heads of Spain and of France ap- 
pear to have used a non-Aryan language, that 
Euskarian which still lives on the shores of the 
Bay of Biscay. In Britain there is no certain 
knowledge of their use of any but Celtic tongues. 
What they spoke in the Mediterranean islands and 
in South Italy does not appear. 

The blond broad-heads of Poland and West 
Russia form part of a people who, when they first 
made their appearance in history, occupied the 
marshy plains imperfectly drained by the Vistula, 
on the west, the Duna, on the north, and the 
Dnieper and Bug, on the south. They were 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 291 

known to their neighbours as Wends, and among 
themselves as Serbs and Slavs. The Slavonic 
languages spoken by these people are said to be 
most closely allied to that of the Lithuanians, 
who lay upon their northern border. The Slavs 
resemble the South Germans in the predominance 
of broad-heads among them, while stature and 
complexion vary from the, often tall, blonds who 
prevail in Poland and great Russia to the, often 
short, brunets common elsewhere. There is cer- 
tainly nothing in the history of the Slav people 
to interfere with the supposition that, from very 
early times, they have been a mixed race. For 
their country lies between that of the tall blond 
long-heads on the north, that of the short brunet 
broad-heads of the European type on the west, 
and that of the short brunet broad-heads of the 
Asiatic type on the east : and, throughout their 
history, they have either thrust themselves among 
their neighbours, or have been overrun and 
trampled down by them. Gauls and Goths have 
traversed their country, on their way to the east 
and south : Finno-tataric people, on their way to 
the west, have not only done the like, but have 
held them in subjection for centuries. On the 
other hand, there have been times when their 
western frontier advanced beyond the Elbe; in- 
deed, it is asserted that they have sent colonies 
to Holland and even as far as southern England. 
A large part of eastern Germany; Bohemia, 



292 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

Moravia, Hungary; the lower valley of the 
Danube and the Balkan peninsula, have been 
largely or completely Slavonised ; and the 
Slavonic rule and language, which once had 
trouble to hold their own in West Russia and 
Little Russia, have now extended their sway over 
all the Finno-tataric populations of Great Russia ; 
while they are advancing, among those of central 
Asia, up to the frontiers of India on the south 
and to the Pacific on the extreme east. Thus it 
is hardly possible that fewer than three races 
should have contributed to the formation of the 
Slavonic people ; namely, the blond long-heads, 
the European brunet broad-heads, and the Asiatic 
brunet broad-heads. And, in the absence of 
evidence to the contrary, it is certainly permissible 
to suppose that it is the first race which has fur- 
nished the blond complexion and the stature 
observable in so many, especially of the northern 
Slavs, and that the brunet complexion and the 
broad skulls must be attributed to the other two. 
But, if that supposition is permissible, then the 
Aryan form and substance of the Slavonic lan- 
guages may also be fairly supposed to have pro- 
ceeded from the blond long-heads, They could 
not have come from the Asiatic brunet broad- 
heads, who all speak non- Aryan languages; and 
the presumption is against their coming from the 
brunet broad-heads of the central European high- 
lands, among whom an apparently non-Aryan 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 293 

language was largely spoken, even in historical 
times. 

In the same way, the tall blond tribes among 
the Fins may be accounted for as the product of 
admixture. The great majority of the Finno- 
tataric people are brunet broad-heads of the 
Asiatic type. But that the Fins proper have long 
been in contact with Aryans is evidenced by the 
many words borrowed from Aryan which their 
language contains. Hence there has been abun- 
dant opportunity for the mixture of races ; and 
for the transference to some of the Fins of more 
or fewer of the physical characters of the Aryans 
and vice versa. On any hypothesis, the frontier 
between Aryan and Finno-tataric people must 
have extended across west-central Asia for a very 
long period ; and, at any point of this frontier, 
it has been possible that mixed races of 
blond Fins or of brunet Aryans should be 
formed. 

So much for the European people who now 
speak Celtic, or Teutonic, or Slavonian, or Lithu- 
anian tongues : or who are known to have spoken 
them, before the supersession of so many of the 
early native dialects by the Romance modifications 
of the language of Rome. With respect to the 
original speakers of Greek and Latin, the un- 
ravelling of the tangled ethnology of the Balkan 
peninsula and the ordering of the chaos of that 
of Italy are enterprises upon which I do not propose 



294 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

to enter. In regard to the first, however, there 
are a few tolerably satisfactory data. The ancient 
Thracians were proverbially blue-eyed and fair- 
haired. Tall blonds were common among the 
ancient Greeks, who were a long-headed people ; 
and the Sphakiots of Crete, probably the purest 
representatives of the old Hellenes in existence, 
are tall and blond. But considering that Greek 
colonisation was taking place on a great scale in 
the eighth century B.C., and that, centuries earlier 
and later, the restless Hellene had been fighting 
trading, plundering and kidnapping, on both sides 
of the iEgean, and perhaps as far as the shores of 
Syria and of Egypt, it is probable that, even at the 
dawn of history, the maritime Greeks were a very 
mixed race. On the other hand, the Dorians may 
well have preserved the original type ; and their 
famous migration may be the earliest known ex- 
ample of those movements of the Aryan race 
which were, in later times, to change the face of 
Europe. Analogy perhaps justifies a guess, that 
those ethnological shadows, the Pelasgi, may have 
been an earlier mixed population, like that of 
Western Gaul and of Britain before the Teutonic 
invasion. At any rate, the tall blond long-heads 
are so well represented in the oldest history 
of the Balkan peninsula, that they may be 
credited with the Aryan languages spoken there. 
And it may be that the tradition which peopled 
Phrygia with Thracians represents a real move- 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 295 

ment of the Aryan race into Asia Minor, such 
as that which in after years carried the Gauls 
thither. 

The difficulties in the way of a probable identi- 
fication of the people among whom the various 
dialects of the Latin group developed themselves, 
with any race traceable in Italy in historical 
times, are very great. In addition to the Italic 
"aborigines" northern Italy was peopled by 
Ligurian brunet broad -heads ; with Gauls, prob- 
ably, to a large extent, blond long-heads; 
with Illyrians, about whom nothing is known. 
Besides these, there were those perplexing 
people the Etruscans, who seem to have been, 
originally, brunet long-heads. South Italy and 
Sicily present a contingent of " Sikels," Phoenicians 
and Greeks; while over all, in comparatively 
modern times, follows a wash of Teutonic blood. 
The Latin dialects arose, no one knows how, 
among the tribes of Central Italy, encompassed 
on all sides by people of the most various physical 
characters, who were gradually absorbed into the 
eternally widening maw of Rome, and there, by 
dint of using the same speech, became the first 
example of that wonderful ethnological hotch- 
potch miscalled the Latin race. The only 
trustworthy guide here is archaeological in- 
vestigation. A great advance will have been 
made when the race characters of the pre-historic 
people of the terremare (who are identified by 



296 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

Helbig 1 with the primitive Umbrians) become 
fully known. 

I cannot learn that the ancient literatures of 
India and of Persia give any definite information 
about the complexion of the Indo-Iranians, beyond 
conveying the impression that they were what we 
vaguely call white men. But it is important to 
note that tall blond people make their appearance 
sporadically among the Tadjiks of Persia and of 
Turkestan; that the Siah-posh and Galtchas of 
the mountainous barrier between Turkestan and 
India are such; and that the same characters 
obtain largely among the Kurds on the western 
frontier of Persia, at the present day. The Kurds 
and the Galtchas are generally broad -headed, the 
others are long-headed. These people and the 
ancient Alans thus form a series of stepping-stones 
between the blond Aryans of Europe and those of 
Asia, standing up amidst the flood of Finno- 
tataric people which has inundated the rest of the 
interval between the sources of the Dnieper and 
those of the Oxus. If only more was known 
about the Sarmatians and the Scythians of the 
oldest historians, it is not improbable, I think, 
that we should discover that, even in historical 
times, the area occupied by the blond long-heads 



1 Die Italiker in der Voehcne, 1879. See for much valuable 
information respecting the races of the Balkan and Italic penin- 
sulae, Zampa's essay, " Vergleichende Anthropologische Ethno- 
graphic von Apulien," Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic, xviii., 1886. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 297 

of Aryan speech has been, at least temporarily, 
continuous from the shores of the North Sea to 
central Asia. 

Suppose it to be admitted, as a fair working hy- 
pothesis, that the blond long-heads once extended 
without a break over this vast area, and that all 
the Aryan tongues have been developed out of 
their original speech, the question respecting the 
home of the race when the various families of 
Aryan speech were in the condition of inceptive 
dialects remains open. For all that, at first, 
appears to the contrary, it may have been in the 
west, or in the east, or anywhere between the 
two. In seeking for a solution of this obscure 
problem, it is an important preliminary to grasp 
the truth that the Aryan race must be much 
older than the primitive Aryan speech. It is not 
to be seriously imagined that the latter sprang 
suddenly into existence, by the act of a jealous 
Deity, apparently unaware of the strength of man's 
native tendency towards confusion of speech. But 
if all the diverse languages of men were not 
brought suddenly into existence, in order to frus- 
trate the plans of the audacious bricklayers of the 
plain of Shinar ; if this professedly historical 
statement is only another " type," and primitive 
Aryan, like all other languages, was built up by a 
secular process of development, the blond long- 
heads, among whom it grew into shape, must for 



298 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

ages have been, philologically speaking, non- 
Aryans, or perhaps one should say "pro- Aryans." 
I suppose it may be safely assumed that Sanskrit 
and Zend and Greek were fully differentiated in 
the year 1500 B.C. If so, how much further back 
must the existence of the primitive Aryan, from 
which these proceeded, be dated ? And how 
much further yet, that real juventus mundi (so 
far as man is concerned) when primitive Aryan 
was in course of formation ? And how much 
further still, the differentiation of the nascent 
Aryan blond long-head race from the primitive 
stock of mankind ? 

If any one maintains that the blond long-headed 
people, among whom, by the hypothesis, the 
primitive Aryan language was generated may have 
formed a separate race as far back as the pleisto- 
cene epoch, when the first unquestionable records 
of man make their appearance, I do not see that 
he goes beyond possibility — though, of course, that 
is a very different thing from proving his case. 
But, if the blond long-heads are thus ancient, the 
problem of their primitive seat puts on an alto- 
gether new aspect. Speculation must take into 
account climatal and geographical conditions 
widely different from those which obtain in 
northern Eurasia at the present day. During 
much of the vast length of the pleistocene period, 
it would seem that men could no more have lived 
either in Britain north of the Thames, or in 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 299 

Scandinavia, or in northern Germany, or in 
northern Russia, than they can live now in the 
interior of Greenland, seeing that the land was 
covered by a great ice sheet like that which at 
present shrouds the latter country. At that 
epoch, the blond long-heads cannot reasonably be 
supposed to have occupied the regions in which 
we meet with them in the oldest times of w T hich 
history has kept a record. 

But even if we are content to assume a vastly 
less antiquity for the Aryan race ; if we only make 
the assumption, for which there is considerable 
positive warranty, that it has existed in Europe 
ever since the end of the pleistocene period — 
when the fauna and flora assumed approximately 
their present condition and the state of things 
called Recent by geologists set in — we have to 
reckon with a distribution of land and water, not 
only very different from that which at present ob- 
tains in northern Eurasia, but of such a nature 
that it can hardly fail to have exerted a great 
influence on the development and the distribution 
of the races of mankind. (See page 250, note 2 .) 

At the present time, four great separate bodies 
of water, the Black Sea, the Caspian, the Sea of 
Aral, and Lake Balkash, occupy the southern end 
of the vast plains which extend from the Arctic 
Sea to the highlands of the Balkan peninsula, of 
Asia Minor, of Persia, of Afghanistan, and of the 
high plateaus of central Asia as far as the Altai. 



300 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

They lie for the most part between the parallels 
of 40° and 50° N. and are separated by wide 
stretches of barren and salt-laden wastes. The 
surface of Balkash is 514 feet, that of the Aral 
158 feet above the Mediterranean, that of the 
Caspian eighty-five feet below it. The Black Sea 
is in free communication with the Mediterranean 
by the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles ; but the 
others, in historical times, have been, at most, 
temporarily connected with it and with one 
another, by relatively insignificant channels. This 
state of things, however, is comparatively modern. 
At no very distant period, the land of Asia Minor 
was continuous with that of Europe, across the 
present site of the Bosphorus, forming a barrier 
several hundred feet high, which dammed up the 
waters of the Black Sea. A vast extent of eastern 
Europe and of western central Asia thus became a 
huge reservoir, the lowest part of the lip of which 
was probably situated somewhat more than 200 feet 
above the sea level, along the present southern 
watershed of the Obi, which flows into the Arctic 
Ocean. Into this basin, the largest rivers of 
Europe, such as the Danube and the Volga, and 
what were then great rivers of Asia, the Oxus and 
Jaxartes, with all the intermediate affluents, 
poured their waters. In addition, it received the 
overflow of Lake Balkash, then much larger; and, 
probably, that of the inland sea of Mongolia. At 
that time, the level of the Sea of Aral stood at 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 301 

least 60 feet higher than it does at present. 1 In- 
stead of the separate Black, Caspian, and Aral 
seas, there was one vast Ponto-Aralian Mediter- 
ranean, which must have been prolonged into arms 
and fiords along the lower valleys of the Danube, 
the Volga (in the course of which Caspian shells 
are now found as far as the Kuma), the Ural, and 
the other affluent rivers — while it seems to have 
sent its overflow, northward, through the present 
basin of the Obi. At the same time, there is 
reason to believe that the northern coast of Asia, 
which everywhere shows signs of recent slow up- 
heaval, was situated far to the south of its present 
position. The consequences of this state of things 
have an extremely important bearing on the 
question under discussion. In the first place, an 
insular climate must be substituted for the present 
extremely continental climate of west central 
Eurasia. That is an important fact in many ways. 
For example, the present eastern climatal limita- 
tions of the beech could not have existed, and if 
primitive Aryan goes back thus far, the argu- 
ments based upon the occurrence of its name 
in some Aryan languages and not in others lose 
their force. In the second place, the European 
and the Asiatic moieties of the oreat Eurasiatic 



1 This is proved by the old shore -marks on the hill of Kash- 
kanatao in the midst of the delta of the Oxus. Some authorities 
put the ancient level very much higher — 200 feet or more (Keane, 
Asia, p. 408). 



302 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI 

plains were cut off from one another by the 
Ponto-Aralian Mediterranean and its prolonga- 
tions. In the third place, direct access to Asia 
Minor, to the Caucasus, to the Persian highlands, 
and to Afghanistan, from the European moiety 
was completely barred ; while the tribes of eastern 
central Asia were equally shut out from Persia 
and from India by huge mountain ranges and 
table lands. Thus, if the blond long-head race 
existed so far back as the epoch in which the 
Ponto-Aralian Mediterranean had its full exten- 
sion, space for its development, under the most 
favourable conditions, and free from any serious 
intrusion of foreign elements from Asia, was pre- 
sented in northern and eastern Europe. 

When the slow erosion of the passage of the 
Dardanelles drained the Ponto-Aralian waters into 
the Mediterranean, they must have everywhere 
fallen as near the level of the latter as the make 
of the country permitted, remaining, at first, con- 
nected by such straits as that of which the traces 
yet persist between the Black and the Caspian, 
the Caspian and the Aral Seas respectively. Then, 
the gradual elevation of the land of northern 
Siberia, bringing in its train a continental climate, 
with its dry air and intense summer heats, the 
loss by evaporation soon exceeded the greatly 
reduced supply of water, and Balkash, Aral, and 
Caspian gradually shrank to their present dimen- 
sions. In the course of this process, the broad 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION SOS 

plains between the separated inland seas, as soon 
as they were laid bare, threw open easy routes to 
the Caucasus and to Turkestan, which might well 
be utilised by the blond long-heads moving east- 
ward through the plains, contemporaneously left 
dry, south and east of the Ural chain. The same 
process of desiccation, however, would render the 
route from east central Asia westward as easily 
practicable ; and, in the end, the Aryan stock 
might easily be cut in two, as we now find it to 
be, by the movement of the Mongoloid brunet 
broad-heads to the west. 

Thus we arrive at what is practically Latham's 
Sarmatian hypothesis — if the term " Sarmatian " 
is stretched a little, so as to include the higher 
parts and a good deal of the northern slopes of 
Europe between the Ural and the German Ocean ; 
an immense area of country, at least as large as 
that now included between the Black Sea, the 
Atlantic, the Baltic, and the Mediterranean. 

If we imagine the blond long-head race to have 
been spread over this area, while the primitive 
Aryan language was in course of formation, its 
north-western and its south-eastern tribes will 
have been 1,500, or more, miles apart. Thus, there 
will have been ample scope for linguistic differ- 
entiation; and, as adjacent tribes were probably 
influenced by the same causes, it is reasonable to 
suppose that, at any given region of the periphery 
the process of differentiation, whether brought 



304 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

about by internal or external agencies, will have 
been analogous. Hence, it is permissible to 
imagine that, even before primitive Aryan had 
attained its full development, the course of that 
development had become somewhat different in 
different localities ; and, in this sense, it may be 
quite true that one uniform primitive Aryan 
language never existed. The nascent mode of 
speech may very early have got a twist, so to 
speak, towards Lithuanian, Slavonian, Teutonic, 
or Celtic, in the north and west ; towards Thracian 
and Greek, in the south-west ; towards Armenian 
in the south ; towards Indo-Iranian in the south- 
east. With the centrifugal movements of the 
several fractions of the race, these tendencies of 
peripheral groups w r ould naturally become more 
and more intensified in proportion to their 
isolation. No doubt, in the centre and in other 
parts of the periphery of the Aryan region, other 
dialectic groups made their appearance ; but what- 
ever development they may have attained, these 
have failed to maintain themselves in the battle 
with the Finno-tataric tribes, or with the stronger 
among their own kith and kin. 1 

Thus I think that the most plausible hypo- 
thetical answers which can be given to the two 
questions which we put at starting are these. 

1 See the views of J. Schmidt (stated and discussed in Schrader 
and Jevons, pp. 63-67), with which those here set forth are 
substantially identical. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 305 

There was and is an Aryan race — that is to say, 
the characteristic modes of speech, termed Aryan, 
were developed among the blond long-heads alone 
however much some of them may have been 
modified by the importation of non-Aryan 
elements. As to the " home " of the Aryan race, 
it was in Europe, and lay chiefly east of the 
central highlands and west of the Ural. From 
this region it spread west, along the coasts of the 
North Sea to our islands, where, probably, it met 
the brunet long-heads ; to France, where it found 
both these and the brunet short-heads ; to 
Switzerland and South Germany* where it im- 
pinged on the brunet short-heads ; to Italy, 
where brunet short-heads seem to have abounded 
in the north and long-heads in the south ; and to 
the Balkan peninsula, about the earliest inhabit- 
ants of which we know next to nothing. There 
are two ways to Asia Minor, the one over the 
Bosphorus and the other through the passes of the 
Caucasus, and the Aryans may well have utilised 
both. Finally, the south-eastern tribes probably 
spread themselves gradually over west Turkestan, 
and, after evolving the primitive Indo-Iranian 
dialect, eventually colonised Persia and Hindostan, 
where their speech developed into its final forms. 
On this hypothesis, the notion that the Celts and 
the Teutons migrated from about Pamir and the 
Hindoo-Koosh is as far from the truth as the sup- 
position that the Indo-lranians migrated from 

184 



306 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

Scandinavia. Ifc supposes that the blond long- 
heads, in what may be called their nascent Aryan 
stage, that is before their dialects had taken on 
the full Aryan characteristics, were spread over a 
wide region which is, conventionally, European ; 
but which, from the point of view of the physical 
geographer, is rather to be regarded as a continu- 
ation of Asia. Moreover, it is quite possible and 
even probable, that the blond long-heads may 
have arrived in Turkestan before their language 
had reached, or at any rate passed beyond, the 
stage of primitive Aryan; and that the whole 
process of differentiation into Indo-Iranian took 
place during the long ages of their residence in 
the basin of the Oxus. Thus, the question 
whether the seat of the primitive Aryans was in 
Europe, or in Asia, becomes very much a debate 
about geographical terminology. 

The foregoing arguments in favour of Latham's 
" Sarmatian hypothesis " have been based upon 
data which lie within the ken of history or may 
be surely concluded by reasoning backwards from 
the present state of things. But, thanks to the 
investigations of the pre-historic archaeologists and 
anthropologists during the last half-century, a vast 
mass of positive evidence respecting the distribution 
and the condition of mankind in the long interval 
between the dawn of history and the commencement 
of the recent epoch has been brought to light. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 307 

During this period, there is evidence that men 
existed in all those regions of Europe which have 
yet been properly examined; and such of their 
bony remains as have been discovered exhibit no 
less diversity of stature and cranial conformation 
than at present. There are tall and short men ; 
long-skulled and broad-skulled men; and it is 
probably safe to conclude that the present contrast 
of blonds and brunets existed among them when 
they were in the flesh. Moreover it has become 
clear that, everywhere, the oldest of these people 
were in the so-called neolithic stage of civilisation. 
That is to say, they not merely used stone imple- 
ments which were chipped into shape, but they 
also employed tools and weapons brought to an 
edge by grinding. At first they know little or 
nothing of the use of metals ; they possess 
domestic animals and cultivated plants and live 
in houses of simple construction. 

In some parts of Europe little advance seems 
to have been made, even down to historical times. 
But in Britain, France, Scandinavia, Germany, 
Western Russia, Switzerland, Austria, the plain 
of the Po, very probably also in the Balkan penin- 
sula, culture gradually advanced until a relatively 
high degree of civilisation was attained. The 
initial impulse in this course of progress appears 
to have been given by the discovery that metal 
is a better material for tools and weapons than 
stone. In the early days of pre-historic archae- 



808 THE AKYAN QUESTION vi 

ology, Nilsson showed that, in the interments of 
the middle age, bronze largely took the place of 
stone, and that, only in the latest, was iron sub- 
stituted for bronze. Thus arose the generalisation 
of the occurrence of a regular succession of stages 
of culture* which were somewhat unfortunately 
denominated the " ages " of stone, bronze, and 
iron. For a long time after this order of succession 
in the same locality (which, it was sometimes 
forgotten, has nothing to do with chronological 
contemporaneity in different localities) was made 
out, the change from stone to bronze was ascribed 
to foreign, and, of course, Eastern influences. 
There were the ubiquitous Phoenician traders and 
the immigrant Aryans from the Hindoo-Koosh, 
ready to hand. But further investigation has 
proved x for various parts of Europe and made it 
probable for others, that though the old order of 
succession is correct it is incomplete, and that a 
copper stage must be interpolated between the 
neolithic and the bronze stages. Bronze is an 
artificial product, the formation of which implies 
a knowledge of copper ; and it is certain that 
copper was, at a very early period, smelted out of 
the native ores, by the people of central Europe 
who used it. When thev learned that the hard- 



1 "Proved" is perhaps too strong a word. But the evidence 
set forth by Dr. Much (Die Kupferzeit in Europa, 1886) in 
favour of a copper stage of culture among the inhabitants of the 
pile-dwellings is very weighty. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 309 

ness and toughness of their metal were immensely 
improved by alloying it with a small quantity of 
tin, they forsook copper for bronze, and gradually 
attained a wonderful skill in bronze -work. Finally, 
some of the European people became acquainted 
with iron, and its superior qualities drove out 
bronze, as bronze had driven out stone, from use 
in the manufacture of implements and weapons of 
the best class. But the process of substitution of 
copper and bronze for stone was gradual, and, for 
common purposes, stone remained in use long 
after the introduction of metals. 

The pile-dwellings of Switzerland have yielded 
an unbroken archaeological record of these changes. 
Those of eastern Switzerland ceased to exist soon 
after the appearance of metals, but in those of the 
Lakes of Neuchatel and Bienne the history is 
continued through the stage of bronze to the 
beginning of that of iron. And in all this long 
series of remains, which lay bare the minutest 
details of the life of the pile-dwellers, from the 
neolithic to the* perfected bronze stage, there is 
no indication of any disturbance such as must 
have been caused by foreign invasion ; and such 
as was produced by intruders, shortly after the iron 
stage was reached. Undoubtedly the constructors 
of the pile-dwellings must have received foreign 
influences through the channel of trade, and may 
have received them by the slow immigration of 
other races. Their amber, their jade, and their 



310 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

tin show that they had commercial intercourse 
with somewhat distant regions. The amber, 
however, takes us no further than the Baltic ; and 
it is now known that jade is to be had within the 
boundaries of Europe, while tin lay no further off 
than north Italy. An argument in favour of 
oriental influence has been based upon the 
characters of certain of the cultivated plants and 
domesticated animals. But even that argument 
does not necessarily take us beyond the limits of 
south-eastern Europe ; and it needs reconsidera- 
tion in view of the changes of physical geography 
and of climate to which I have drawn attention. 

In connection with this question there is another 
important series of facts to be taken into con- 
sideration. When, in the seventeenth century, 
the Russians advanced beyond the Ural and began 
to occupy Siberia, they found that the majority of 
-the natives used implements of stone and bone. 
Only a few possessed tools or weapons of iron, 
which had reached them by way of commerce; 
the Ostiaks and the Tartars of Tom, alone, ex- 
tracted their iron from the ore. It was not until 
the invaders reached the Lena, in the far east, 
that they met with skilful smiths among the 
Jakuts, 1 who manufactured knives, axes, lances, 
battle-axes, and leather jerkins studded with iron; 

1 Andree, Die Metalle bei den Naturvolkern (p. 114). It is 
interesting to note that the Jakuts have always been pastoral 
nomads, formerly shepherds, now horse-breeders, and that they 



VI 



THE ARYAN QUESTION 311 



and among the Tunguses and Lamuts, who had 
learned from the Jakuts. 

But there is an older chapter of Siberian 
history which was closed in the seventeenth 
century, as that of the people of the pile-dwellings 
of Switzerland had ended when the Romans 
entered Helvetia. Multitudes of sepulchral 
tumuli, termed like those of European Russia, 
" kurgans," are scattered over the north Asiatic 
plains, and are especially agglomerated about the 
upper waters of the Jenisei. Some are modern, 
while others, extremely ancient, are attributed to 
a quasi-mythical people, the Tschudes. These 
Tschudish kurgans abound in copper and gold 
articles of use and luxury, but contain neither 
bronze nor iron. The Tschudes procured their 
copper and their gold from the metalliferous rocks of 
the Ural and the Altai ; and their old shafts, adits, 
and rubbish heaps led the Russians to the re- 
discovery of the forgotten stores of wealth. The 
race to which the Tschudes belonged and the age 
of the works which testify to their former exist- 
ence, are alike unknown. But seeing that a 
rumour of them appears to have reached 
Herodotus, while, on the other hand, the pile- 
dwelling civilisation of Switzerland may perhaps 
come down as late as the fifth century B.C., the 

continue to work their iron in the primitive fashion ; as the 
argument that metallurgic skill implies settled agricultural life 
not unfrequently makes its appearance. 



312 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI 

possibility that a knowledge of the technical value 
of copper may have travelled from Siberia west- 
ward must not be overlooked. If the idea of 
turning metals to account must needs be Asiatic, 
it may be north Asiatic just as well as south 
Asiatic. In the total absence of trustworthy 
chronological and anthropological data, speculation 
may run wild. 

The oldest civilisations for which we have an, 
even approximately, accurate chronology are those 
of the valleys of the Nile and of the Euphrates. 
Here, culture seems to have attained a degree of 
perfection, at least as high as that of the bronze 
stage, six thousand years ago. But before the 
intermediation of Etruscan, Phoenician, and Greek 
traders, there is no evidence that they exerted 
any serious influence upon Europe or northern 
Asia. As to the old civilisation of Mesopotamia, 
what is to be said until something definite is 
known about the racial characters of its origin- 
ators, the Accadians ? As matters stand, tbey are 
just as likely to have been a group of the same 
race as the Egyptians, or the Dravidians, as any- 
thing else. And considering that their culture 
developed in the extreme south of the Euphrates 
valley, it is difficult to imagine that its influence 
could have spread to northern Eurasia except by 
the Phoenician (and Carian ?) intermediation which 
was undoubtedly operative in comparatively late 
times. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 313 

Are we then to bring down the discovery of 
the use of copper in Switzerland to, at earliest, 
1500 B.C., and to put it down to Phoenician hints? 
But why copper ? At that time the Phoenicians 
must have been familiar with the use of bronze. 
And if, on the other hand, the northern Eurasiatics 
had got as far as copper, by the help of their own 
ingenuity, why deny them the capacity to make 
the further step to bronze ? Carry back the 
borrowing system as far as we may, in the end 
we must needs come to some man or men from 
whom the novel idea started, and who after many 
trials and errors gave it practical shape. And 
there really is no ground in the nature of things 
for supposing that such men of practical genius 
may not have turned up, independently, in more 
races than one. 

The capacity of the population of Europe for 
independent progress while in the copper and 
early bronze stage — the " palaeo-metallic " stage, as 
it might be called — appears to me to be demon- 
strated in a remarkable manner by the remains 
of their architecture. From the crannog to the 
elaborate pile-dwelling, and from the rudest 
enclosure to the complex fortification of the 
terramare, there is an advance which is obviously 
a native product. So with the sepulchral con- 
structions ; the stone cist, with or without a pre- 
servative or memorial cairn, grows into the 
chambered graves lodged in tumuli; into such 



314 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

megalithic edifices as the dromic vaults of Maes 
How and New Grange ; to culminate in the 
finished masonry of the tombs of Mycenae, con- 
structed on exactly the same plan. Can any one 
look at the varied series of forms which lie 
between the primitive five or six flat stones fitted 
together into a mere box, and such a building as 
Maes How, and yet imagine that the latter is the 
result of foreign tuition ? But the men who built 
Maes How, without metal tools, could certainly 
have built the so-called " treasure-house " of 
Mycense, with them. 

If these old men of the sea, the heights of 
Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir and the plain of Shinar, had 
been less firmly seated upon the shoulders of 
anthropologists, I think they would long since 
have seen that it is at least possible that the 
early civilisation of Europe is of indigenous 
growth ; and that, so far as the evidence at 
present accumulated goes, the neolithic culture 
may have attained its full development, copper 
may have gradually come into use, and bronze 
may have succeeded copper, without foreign 
intervention. 

So far as I am aware, every raw material em- 
ployed in Europe up to the palseo-metallic stage, 
is to be found within the limits of Europe ; and 
there is no proof that the old races of domesticated 
animals and plants could not have been developed 
within these limits. If any one chose to main- 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 315 

tain, that the use of bronze in Europe originated 
among the inhabitants of Etruria and radiated 
thence, along the already established lines of 
traffic to all parts of Europe, I do not see that his 
contention could be upset. It would be hard to 
prove either that the primitive Etruscans could 
not have discovered the way to manufacture 
bronze, or that they did not discover it and become 
a great mercantile people in consequence, before 
Phoenician commerce had reached the remote 
shores of the Tyrrhene Sea. 

Can it be safely concluded that the palseo- 
metallic culture which we have been considering 
was the appanage of any one of the western 
Eurasiatic races rather than another? Did it 
arise and develop among the brunet or the blond 
long-heads, or among the brunet short-heads ? I 
do not think there are any means of answering 
these questions, positively, at present. Schrader 
has pointed out that the state of culture of the 
primitive Aryans, deduced from philological data, 
closely corresponds with that which obtained 
among the pile-dwellers in the neolithic stage. 
But the resemblance of the early stages of civil- 
isation among the most different and widely 
separated races of mankind, should warn us that 
archaeology is no more a sure guide in questions 
of race than philology. 

With respect to the osteological characters of 



316 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

the people of the Swiss pile-dwellings information 
is as yet scanty. So far as the present evidence 
goes, they appear to have comprised both broad- 
heads and long-heads of moderate stature. l In 
France, England, and Germany, both long and 
broad skulls are found in tumuli belonging to the 
neolithic stage. In some parts of England the 
long skulls, and in others the broad skulls, accom- 
pany the higher stature. In the Scandinavian 
peninsula, nine-tenths of the neolithic people are 
decided long-heads : in Denmark, there is a much 
larger proportion of broad -heads. 

In view of all the facts known to me (which 
cannot be stated in greater detail in this place), I 
am disposed to think that the blond long-heads, 
the brunet long-heads, and the brunet broad- 
heads have existed on the continent of Europe 
throughout the Recent period : that only the for- 
mer two at first inhabited our islands ; but that a 
mixed race of tall broad-heads, like some of the 
Blackforesters of the present day, so excellently 
described by Ecker, migrated from the continent 
and formed that tall contingent of the population 

1 Professor Virchow has guardedly expressed the opinion that 
the oldest inhabitants of the Swiss pile-dwellings were broad- 
heads, and that later on (commencing before the bronze stage) 
there was a gradual infusion of long-heads among them. 
(Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic xvii., 1885). There is independent 
evidence of the existence of broad-heads in the Cevennes during 
the neolithic period, and I should be disposed to think that this 
opinion may well be correct ; but the examination of the evidence 
on which it is, at present, based does not lead me to feel very 
confident about it. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 317 

which has been identified (rightly or wrongly) 
with the Belgoe by Thurnam and which seems to 
have subsequently lost itself among the predomi- 
nant brunet and blond long-heads. 

I do not think there is anything to warrant the 
conclusion that the palseo-metallic culture of 
Europe took its origin among the blond long-head 
(or supposed Aryan) race ; or that the people of 
the Swiss pile-dwellings belonged to that race. 
The long-heads among them may just as likely 
have been brunets. In north-eastern Italy there 
is clear evidence of the superposition of at least 
four stages of culture, in which that of the copper 
and bronze using terramare people comes second ; 
a stage marked by Etruscan domination occupies 
the third place ; and that is followed by the stage 
which appertains to the Gauls, with their long 
swords and other characteristic iron work. In west- 
ern Switzerland, on the other hand, at La Tene, and 
elsewhere, similar relics show that the Gauls fol- 
lowed upon the latest population of the pile- 
dwellings among whom traces of Etruscan influ- 
ence (though not of dominion) are to be found. 
Helbig supposes the terramare people to have been 
Greco-Latin-speaking Pelasgi, and consequently 
Aryan. But we cannot suppose the people of the 
pile-dwellings of Switzerland to have been 
speakers of primitive Greco-Latin (if ever there 
was such a language). And if the Gauls were the 
first speakers of Celtic who got into Switzerland, 



318 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI 

what Aryan language can the people of the pile- 
dwellings have spoken ? x 

As I have already mentioned, there is not the 
least doubt that man existed in north-western 
Europe during the Pleistocene or Quaternary 
epoch. It is not only certain that men were con- 
temporaries of the mammoth, the hairy rhinoceros, 
the reindeer, the cave bear, and other great 
carnivora, in England and in France, but a great 
deal has been ascertained about the modes of life 
of our predecessors. They were savage hunters, 
who took advantage of such natural shelters as 
overhanging rocks and caves, and perhaps built 
themselves rough wigwams ; but who had no 
domestic animals and have left no sign that they 
cultivated plants. In many localities there is 
evidence that a very considerable interval — the 
so-called hiatus — intervened between the time 
when the Quaternary or palaeolithic men occupied 
particular caves and river basins and the accumu- 
lation of the debris left by their neolithic succes- 
sors. And, in spite of all the warnings against 
negative evidence afforded by the history of 
geology, some have very positively asserted that 
this means a complete break between the Quater- 

1 See Dr. Munro's excellent work, The Lake Dwellings of 
Europe, for La Tene. Readers of Professor Rhys' recent articles 
(Scottish Review, 1890) may suggest that the pile-dwelling 
people spoke the Gaedhelic form of Celtic, and the Gauls the 
Brythonic form. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 319 

nary and the Recent populations — that the 
Quaternary population followed the retreating ice 
northwards and left behind them a desert which 
remained unpeopled for ages. Other high authori- 
ties, on the contrary, have maintained that the races 
of men who now inhabit Europe may all be traced 
back to the Great Ice Age. When a conflict of 
opinion of this kind obtains among reasonable and 
instructed men, it is generally a safe conclusion 
that the evidence for neither view is worth much. 
Certainly that is the result of my own cogitations 
with regard to both the hiatus doctrine (in its 
extreme form) and its opposite— though I think 
the latter by much the more likely to turn out 
right. But I hesitate to adopt it on the evidence 
which has been obtained up to this time. 

No doubt, human bones and skulls of various 
types have been discovered in close proximity to 
palaeolithic implements and to skeletons of qua- 
ternary quadrupeds ; no doubt, if the bones and 
skulls in question were not human, their con- 
temporaneity would hardly have been questioned. 
But, since they are human, the demand for further 
evidence really need not be ascribed to mere con- 
servative prejudice. Because the human biped 
differs from all other bipeds and quadrupeds, in 
the tendency to put his dead out of sight in vari- 
ous ways; commonly by burial. It is a habit 
worthy of all respect in itself, but generative of 
subtle traps and grievous pitfalls for the unwary 



S20 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

investigator of human palaeontology. For it may 
easily happen, that the bones of him that " died o' 
Wednesday/' may thus come to lie alongside the 
bones of animals that were extinct thousands of 
years before that Wednesday ; and yet the inter- 
ment may have been effected so many thousands 
of years ago that no outward sign betrays the 
difference in date. In all investigations of this 
kind, the most careful and critical study of the 
circumstances is needful if the results are to be 
accepted as perfectly trustworthy. 

In the case of the remains found in a cave of 
the valley of the Neander, near Diisseldorf, half a 
century ago — the characters of which gave rise to 
a vast amount of discussion at that time and subse- 
quently — the circumstances of the discovery were 
but vaguely known. The skeleton was met with 
in a deposit, the loess, which is known to be of 
quaternary age ; there was no evidence to show 
how it came there. Consequently, not only was 
its exact age justly and properly declared to be a 
matter of doubt ; but those who, on scientific or 
other grounds, were inclined to minimise its 
importance could put forth plausible speculations 
about its nature which do not look so well under 
the light thrown by a more advanced science of 
Anthropology. It could be" and it was suggested 
that the Neanderthal skeleton was that of a 
strayed idiot ; that the characters of the skull were 
the result of early synostosis or of late gout ; and, 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 321 

in fact, any stick was good enough to beat the dog 
withal. 

As some writings of mine on the subject led to 
my occupation of a prominent position among the 
belaboured dogs of that day, I have taken a mild 
interest in watching the gradual rehabilitation of 
my old friend of the Neanderthal among normal 
men, which has been going on of late years. It 
has come to be generally admitted that his re- 
markable cranium is no more than a strongly- 
marked example of a type which occurs, not only 
among other prehistoric men, but is met with, 
sporadically, among the moderns ; and that, after 
all, I was not so wrong as I ought to have been, 
when I indicated such points of similarity among 
the skulls found in our river-beds and among the 
native races of Australia. 1 However, doubts still 
clung about the geological age of the various 
deposits in which skulls of the Neanderthal type 
were subsequently found ; and it was not until the 
year 1886 that two highly-competent observers, 
Messrs. Fraipont and Lohest, the one an anatomist, 
the other a geologist, furnished us with evidence 
such as will bear severe criticism. At the mouth 
of a cave in the commune of Spy, in the Belgian 
province of Namur, Messrs. Fraipont and Lohest 
discovered two skeletons of the Neanderthal type ; 
and the elaborate account of their investigations 
which they have published appears to me to leave 
1 See p. 202 of this volume. 
185 



322 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 

little room for doubt that the men of Spy fabri- 
cated the palaeolithic implements, and were the 
contemporaries of the characteristic quaternary 
quadrupeds, found with them. The anatomical 
characters of the skeletons bear out conclusions 
which are not flattering to the appearance of the 
owners. They were short of stature but power- 
fully built, with strong, curiously-curved, thigh- 
bones, the lower ends of which are so fashioned 
that they must have walked with a bend at the 
knees. Their long depressed skulls had very 
strong brow ridges ; their lower jaws, of brutal 
depth and solidity, sloped away from the teeth 
downwards and backwards, in consequence of the 
absence of that especially characteristic feature of 
the higher type of man, the chin prominence. 
Thus these skulls are not only eminently " Nean- 
derthaloid," but they supply the proof that the 
parts wanting in the original specimen harmonised 
in lowness of type with the rest. 

After a very full discussion of the anatomical 
characters of these skulls, M. Fraipont says : 

To sum up, we consider ourselves to be in a position to say 
that, having regard merely to the anatomical structure of the 
man of Spy, he possessed a greater number of pithecoid charac- 
ters than any other race of mankind. 1 

And after enumerating these he continues : 
The other and much more numerous characters of the skull, of 

1 Fraipont et Lohest. [ "La Race humainede Neanderthal, ou 
de Canstatt, en Belgique," Archives de Biologic, 1886. 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 323 

the trunk, and of the limbs seem to be all human. Between 
the man of Spy and an existing anthropoid ape there lies an 
abyss. 

Now that is pleasant reading for me, because, 
in 1863, I committed myself to the assertion that 
the Neanderthal skull was " the most pithecoid of 
human crania yet discovered/' yet that " in no sense 
can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the 
remains of a human being intermediate between 
men and apes " * and " that the fossil remains of 
Man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to take 
us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form, 
by the modification of which he has, probably, 
become what he is." 2 

As the evidence stood seven and twenty years 
ago, in fact, it would have been imprudent to as- 
sume that the Neanderthal skull was anything but 
a case of sporadic reversion. But, m my anxiety 
not to overstate my case, I understated it. The 
Neanderthaloid race is " appreciably nearer,'' 
though the approximation is but slight. In the 
words of M. Fraipont : 

The distance which separates the man of Spy from the 
modern anthropoid ape is undoubtedly enormous ; between the 
man of Spy and the Dryopitkecus it is a little less. But we 
must be permitted to point out that if the man of the later 
quaternary age is the stock whence existing races have sprung, 
he has travelled a very great way. 

From the data now obtained, it is permissible to believe that 

1 See p. 205 supra. 2 Ibid. p. 208. 



324 THE AEYAN QUESTION VI 

we shall be able to pursue the ancestral type of men and the 
anthropoid apes still further, perhaps as far as the eocene and 
even beyond. 1 

These conclusions hold good whatever the age 
of the men of Spy ; but they possess a peculiar 
interest if we admit, as I think on the evidence 
must be admitted, that these human fossils are of 
pleistocene age. For, after all due limitations, 
they give us some, however dim, insight into the 
rate of evolution of the human species, and indi- 
cate that it has not taken place at a much faster 
or slower pace than that of other mammalia. And 
if that is so, we are warranted in the supposition 
that the genus Homo, if not the species which the 
courtesy or the irony of naturalists has dubbed 
sapiens, was represented in pliocene, or even in 
miocene times. But I do not know by what 
osteological peculiarities it could be determined 
whether the pliocene, or miocene, man was suffi- 
ciently sapient to speak or not ; 2 and whether, or 
not, he answered to the definition "rational ani- 
mal " in any higher sense than a dog or an ape does. 

There is no reason to suppose that the genus 

1 " "Where, then, must we look for primaeval Man ? Was the 
oldest Homo sapiens, pliocene or miocene, or yet more ancient ? 
In still older strata do the fossilised bones of an Ape more 
anthropoid or a Man more pithecoid than any yet known await 
the researches of some unborn palaeontologist ? " — P. 208 stcpra. 

2 I am perplexed by the importance attached by some to the 
presence or absence of the so-called " genial " elevations. Does 
any one suppose that the existence of the genio-hyo-glossus 
muscle, which plays so large a part in the movements of the 
tongue, depends on that of these elevations ? 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 325 

Homo was confined to Europe in the pleistocene 
age; it is much more probable that this, like 
other mammalian genera of that period, was 
spread over a large extent of the surface of the 
globe. At that time, in fact, the climate of 
regions nearer the equator must have been far 
more favourable to the human species ; and it is 
possible that, under such conditions, it may have 
attained a higher development than in the north. 
As to where the genus Homo originated, it is 
impossible to form even a probable guess. During 
the miocene epoch, one region of the present 
temperate zones would serve as well as another. 
The elder Agassiz long ago tried to prove that the 
well-marked areas of geographical distribution of 
mammals have their special kinds of men ; and, 
though this doctrine cannot be made good to the 
extent which Agassiz maintained ; yet the limita- 
tion of the Australian type to New Holland, 1 the 
approximate restriction of the negro type to Ultra- 
Saharal Africa, and the peculiar character of the 
population of Central and South America, are facts 
which bear strongly in favour of the conclusion 
that the causes which have influenced the distri- 
bution of mammals in general, have powerfully 
affected that of man. 

Let it be supposed that the human remains 
from the caves of the Neanderthal and of Spy 

P Unless I am right in extending it to Hindustan and 
even further west. — 1894.] 



326 THE AKYAN QUESTION vi 

represent the race, or one of the races, of men who 
inhabited Europe in the quaternary epoch, can 
any connection be traced between it and existing 
races ? That is to say, do any of them exhibit 
characters approximating those of the Spy men 
or other examples of the Neanderthaloid race ? 
Put in the latter form, I think that the question 
may be safely answered in the affirmative. Skulls 
do occasionally approach the Neanderthaloid type, 
among both the brunet and the blond long-head 
races. For the former, I pointed out the resem- 
blance, long ago, in some of the Irish river-bed 
skulls. For the latter, evidence of various kinds 
may be adduced ; but I prefer to cite the autho- 
rity of one of the most accomplished and cautious 
of living anthropologists. Professor Virchow was 
led, by historical considerations, to think that the 
Teutonic type, if it still remained pure and un- 
defiled anywhere, should be discoverable among 
the Frisians, in their ancient island homes on the 
North German coast, remote from the great move- 
ments of nations. In their tall stature and blond 
complexion the Frisians fulfilled expectation ; but 
their skulls differed in some respects from those 
of the neighbouring blond long-heads. The de- 
pression, or flattening (accompanied by a slight 
increase in breadth), which occurs occasionally 
among the latter, is regular and characteristic 
among the Frisians ; and, in other respects, the 
Frisian skull unmistakably approaches the Nean- 



VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 327 

derthal and Spy type. 1 The fact that this re- 
semblance exists is of none the less importance 
because the proper interpretation of it is not yet 
clear. It may be taken to be a pretty sure 
indication of the physiological continuity of the 
blond long-heads with the pleistocene Neander- 
thaloid men. But this continuity may have been 
brought about in two ways. The blond long- 
heads may exhibit one of the lines of evolution of 
the men of the Neanderthaloid type. Or, the 
Frisians may be the result of the admixture of 
the blond long-heads with Neanderthaloid men ; 
whose remains have been found at Canstatt and 
at Gibraltar, as well as at Spy and in the valley 
of the Neander; and who, therefore, seem, at one 
time, to have occupied a considerable area in 
Western Europe. The same alternatives present 
themselves when Neanderthaloid characters appear 
in skulls of other races. If these characters belong 
to a stage in the development of the human 
species, antecedent to the differentiation of any of 
the existing races, we may expect to find them in 
the lowest of these races, all over the world, and 
in the early stages of all races. I have already 
referred to the remarkable similarity of the skulls 
of certain tribes of native Australians to the 

1 Virchow Beitrdge zur physisclien Anthropologic der Deutschen 
(Abh. der Koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 
1876). See particularly p. 238 for the full recognition of the 
Neanderthaloid characters of Frisian skulls and of the ethno- 
logical significance of the similarity. 



328 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI 

Neanderthal skull ; and I may add, that the wide 
differences in height between the skulls of 
different tribes of Australians afford a parallel to 
the differences in altitude between the skulls of 
the men of Spy and those of the grave rows of 
North Germany. Neanderthaloid features are to 
be met with, not only in ancient long skulls; 
those of the ancient broad-headed people entombed 
at Borreby in Denmark have been often noted. 

Reckoned by centuries, the remoteness of the 
quaternary, or pleistocene, age from our own is 
immense, and it is difficult to form an adequate 
notion of its duration. Undoubtedly there is an 
abysmal difference between the Neanderthaloid race 
and the comely living specimens of the blond long- 
heads with whom we are familiar. But the abyss 
of time between the period at which North Europe 
was first covered with ice, when savages pursued 
mammoths and scratched their portraits with 
sharp stones in central France, and the present 
day, ever widens as we learn more about the 
events which bridge it. And, if the differences 
between the Neanderthaloid men and ourselves 
could be divided into as many parts as that time 
contains centuries, the progress from part to part 
would probably be almost imperceptible. 

END OF VOL. VII 



A 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

NA W, from 1775 to 1894. By Edgar Stanton Maclay, 
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tions of the ships throughout the contest, and there are many small maps of 
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^^ Volume II, containing the naval history of the Rebellion, revised by 
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OUTLINE OF CONTENTS, VOLUME I. 
Part First. — The War of the Revolution. 
Chapter I. The United States a Maritime Nation. II. Development of 
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Navy in Europe. V. The Struggle in American Waters. VI. Second 
Cruise of Captain John Paul Jones. VII. The Bonhomme Richard- 
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Part Third.— The War of 1812. 
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Shannon. VIII. Operations on the Great Lakes. IX. Battle of Lake 
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MAR 1959 



